


life (and her lemons)

by guide_to_the_galaxy



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW Comics), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Brotherhood, Chronic Illness, F/F, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Human AU, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Multi, Mutants, Mutual Pining, Self-Discovery, Teenage Dorks, Teenage Drama, i love my kids, pls enjoy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2019-09-03 00:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16797439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guide_to_the_galaxy/pseuds/guide_to_the_galaxy
Summary: Between making ends meet, and sickness and learning about loving, Mikey’s journey to find himself in the midst of it all starts like a spark, quiet and dazzling at first, and exploding into some miraculously profound discovery. And through it, Mikey connects his heart to the art of life- its sweet beauty and wonderful things- and its uglier parts, the dark and hurting and bittersweet lemons.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> ahhh im so excited to share this fic with you guys! It's my first official multi-chap and I pulled a lot of personal experiences to make this what it is! Also, side note, while the boys are completely human, there are mutants in this universe :)

**Wednesday July 17th**

It’s sweltering hot on the stoops in Jackson Heights Queens, in mid-July- no shade, no cover, sidewalks sizzling and heat waves rolling off the rows of cars down High Street. Somebody around the block started a water gun fight and Ms. Morris, freshly widowed and childless- and somehow miraculously not embittered because of it- offers some shelter for the soaking wet losers, a place to dry off and eat a popsicle.

Mikey sits- not as a loser, and as more of a just non-participant- legs folded on her floral couch, the plastic cover sticking to his thighs and his hair held back from his face by an old fuzzy sweatband and a bobby pin. He’s nothing short of determined, interlocked with focus and something  _ hungry  _ in the way he traces the pages of his sketchbook. Because he’s almost got it, and December was closer than it seemed now, on day seven of all 90 degrees in July.

Ms. Morris, having snatched away her laundry basket that Raph was trying to carry for her, pulls open her curtains and lets in the burning sunshine, making Mikey recoil and Donnie, who’d been adjusting the wires to her television, old and boxy and aesthetically vintage, hiss.

“Oh c’mon now boys,” she says, in a voice that’s easy and smooth and never lacking the sternness Mikey only imagines comes eloquently with motherhood and womankind herself, and Dorothy Morris wore it exceptionally well, “It’s a hot summer day an’ y’all been cooped up in this living room. You’re young, got good  _ bones _ wastin’ away in this house. Now that just don’t make no sense.” 

She rests the basket on her other hip, away from Raph, and raises a brow at Mikey and his brothers; Leo’s in and out of afternoon, pre-evening napping, of course, and if they weren't in an 80 year old’s apartment, Mikey's almost sure he’d be mostly naked.

“As beautiful as it is outside, Ms. M...” Mikey starts, erasing his work again, and Donnie pokes his head from behind the T.V.

“We prefer not to waste energy burning up under deadly U.V  _ rays _ , thanks.”

“Huh, well those  _ U.V’s _ would keep you from lookin’ all  _ dead  _ on the outsides and-” she shudders, “Zombie-ish.”

Donnie’s glare mirrors hers, and his devilish grin rivals the twist of her lips, “Oh, Dorothy…” he sighs, returning to his work on her T.V, “I’m plenty dead  _ inside.  _ I take pride in that, actually. But watch what ya say to the guy providing you- what was it?- twenty-seven free channels?”

Ms. Morris makes a sound caught in her throat, something like a laugh and a snort and she elbows Raph away when he tries to slip the basket from her, “Boy if you don’t back the hell away from me-"

“I- you really,  _ really  _ shouldn't be carryin’ that- just let me take-  _ An’ _ ya walkin’ away. Okay.” 

He closes the curtains as she leaves the room, plopping on the couch next to Mikey,making him rise up a bit on his side, plastic creaking.

Dorothy Morris had been their neighbor and unofficial, sorta-official nanny when Pops had to work overnight before the heart attack, and even after that she deduced four boys in a small apartment would do the opposite of wonders for a healing heart, opening up her space two floors down. And sometimes it felt like the universe itself sent her, with frozen pre-cooked pancakes when money got tight. 

And insane wisdom for good measure. For really, really shitty things. 

Raph leans over, eyeing the mess of scribbles and eraser marks in Mikey’s book.

“Still nothin’ huh?” he mumbles a bit remorsefully, slinging an arm around his brother.

And sinking into it, Mikey nods, eyes still downcast onto the pages, “I’m washed up, Raph. Finished,  _ useless- _ "

_“Why the fuck you lyin’?”_ Leo sings groggily, half of his body hanging off the couch, and taking Ms. M’s plastic with it.

“I second that,” Donnie calls from behind the television.

“An’ I third it,” Raph says, patting Mikey’s cheek, “Mikes you’ve never done nothin’ short’a amazing. You’re like the Michelangelo guy, remember? Ya make cool as hell art that no one  _ but  _ you ‘s gonna think of.” 

“You just need  _ time, man,”  _ Leo chimes, “Which you’ve got, like, a shitton of. Rome was  _ so  _ not built in a day. Pave your own path, be the girl that always goes for it- get up, dress up and show up, but never give up.” 

“Oh my dear lord in heaven _ ,  _ shut the fuck up, Leo, you’re definitely on Pinterest right now.”

“No, I definitely just came up with all that off the top of my head. Where...where’s your input- again?” 

“Oh shit. You’re so right,” Donnie deadpans, cocking his head, “Let me google some empowering Beyonce quotes-"

“Ew. You don't get to say her name.”

And while his brothers bicker and Raph tucks his phone away and hops off the couch, ruffling his kinky hair, Mikey thinks that Leo, Raph, Dee and Pinterest- and most definitely anything  _ Beyonce  _ has to say like ‘pretty hurts’ or the one Donnie’s quoting right now about growth and perfection- got it right. 

“Life is shitty,” Raph says later on, taking Mikey out of his thoughts momentarily, on the bus with Donnie asleep on his shoulder, and smiles warmly, “But it’s also kinda inspiring as hell if you look at it right- that’s what I think, y’know?” 

And all Mikey can say, watching the sunset bright orange and blazing, is: _ “Yeah,”  _ soft and pondering what his Great Inspiration might just be, and where it would lurk, and how this all would come about. 


	2. The Great Inspiring: part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikey gets...stuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love October, and cozy sweater, and family feels. I hope you guys love that too!

**Tuesday, October 16th**

The Great Inspiring does not happen in the second half of July, or in August, and September provided little momentum either for that matter. The Great Inspiring had taken backseat to finding jobs and bringing in income and school and a million things- both shitty and un-shitty because, as Mikey’s learned, that’s just what life seemed to do to dreams and inspiration: Life itself would  _ bury _ them.

“Okay how about some Doritos?”

“Nah.” 

“Pringles.”

“Oh  _ hell  _ no- Leo  _ inhales  _ those.” 

“But Pops loves ‘em-”

Raph stops the cart, considering it. “No...no, Pop needs ta watch his salt intake, so no.”

Mikey tosses his head back, trailing behind Raphael down the isles of Food Bazaar, kicking up little stray leaves the wind and bustle of evening shoppers brought in. It’s October. A Tuesday in October, hazy and windy and cool enough to burrow into a layer or two of turtlenecks and sweaters and crew socks, and stay inside and crawl under blankets and  _ stay there _ . And hazy, windy Tuesdays in October brought the ambiance of everything that dragged on lazily like honey- slow and welcomed- in the business yet quietude of a supermarket in Queens. 

And maybe it was just Mikey, or the wonderfully placed Halloween decorum strewn all over the store, or the cozy sweaters he was drowning in that made him want to  _ sleep,  _ falling, for the few seconds he crawled into his headspace, out of step with Raph, who’s been frustratedly mumbling since they stepped into the supermarket, coupons in his fanny pack, game face of a suburban mother of  _ seven _ on and the reading glasses he’d wear when a.) going over a bill with Pops or b.) totaling up prices in Food Bazaar like it was a dedicated artform. Mikey loves his brother for it (he could come up endlessly with reasons to love his brothers, and the sheer determination not to fuck up in the grocery store is one of them).

His sneakers scuff against the floor, devoid of any real  _ shine  _ despite the wet floor sign still chilling in the center of the isle, crooked and cracked; it’s really been there, Mikey thinks, for months- or that’s how the not-so-enthralling urban legend has gone since the early summer, when the heat brought everybody out onto the stoops and creating myth seemed a distraction of good measure. And it was nothing exciting, just no one had  _ moved  _ the thing, and after a while it just seemed right to be left in the middle of isle 17, where the chips were. Where Mikey, after assuming his position inside the cart Raph was pushing, switches smoothly between conversing with Raph about nothing and everything, sending snaps to April and reading off the grocery list. 

And in regards to the wet floor sign, everyone made some kind of silent, wordless, unanimous decision to simply swerve around the sign, in the tight isle. 

Raph does it without thinking, scanning the shelves for the kale chips Pops was supposed to eat now instead of his usual Cheetos. 

_ “It’s really for your own good, Dad,”  _ Donnie had said from across the kitchen table during their Health Crisis Intervention/Go Fish championship.  _ “For god’s sake you eat a jar of those things before they get through recapping the last telenovela- that’s  _ bad.” 

(It  _ was  _ bad. And not just because Pops was slowly clogging up his arteries: he always managed to drag Leo into watching them, and then Donnie and in an hour they were shouting professions of their love at each other in Spanish.) 

“And it’s not just Pops neither,” Raph mumbles, comparing the prices of Air Popcorn and kale chips, looking down to Mikey as he pushes the cart. “‘S you too.” 

When he shoots a knowing look at him, Mikey glances around the near-empty isle, placing a heavy hand on his chest. “Are you? Insinuating? That I _don’t..._ eat healthy?” 

Raph makes a noncommittal noise in his throat, and drops the kale chips in his lap. And face falling deadpan, Mikey hopes that the off-shot plane of existence he’s looking into is some hidden The Office-esque camera (or, alternatively, the store security ones). 

“I’m insulted.”

Raph snorts, smiling and showing his teeth as he does, rich and hearty, running fingers through Mikey’s thick curls. “Sorry, Mikey,” he amends genuinely and with earnest, and, sliding a KitKat into his hand, he offers a small smile. 

Taking it slowly, and peeling the wrapper even slower, Mikey wrinkles his nose in a narrow-eyed speculating stare at his brother.“For the record-" He bites into it, tugging at the string to Raph’s hoodie, “-this means nothing.”

Raph clucks his tongue, staring dully. “Uh-huh.”

“It doesn’t do  _ shit  _ for your point either, bro.” Taking another bit, he adds, as-a-matter-of-factly, “I’m still standing, and my energy is big.”

“Sitting, actually, but go off,” Raph interjects slyly, snagging a few boxes of cracker. 

Mikey gawks, lifting his foot as close to his brother’s face as he can, “These is _ Gucci, Raph,”  _ he whispers with desperation, “Can’t be touching the grimey floor with ‘em. Mm-mm.” 

“This is what I get f’ lettin’ you talk to Leo too much, Jesus. Eat that and regulate your blood sugar for  _ once,  _ thank you.”

And Mikey doesn’t dispute that, sticking his tongue out at Raph and hopping out the cart,- not with the vigor he’d have if he wasn’t feeling like his day consisted of solely getting by on empty. School lunches sucked, he didn’t have cash for the vending machine and sometimes checking his levels every few hours  _ sucked.  _ He follows Raph, munching on his KitKat, sticking close behind him and finding comfort when their shoulders bump- hoodie against the wool of an oversized sweater, and he’s just a little bit grateful for his brother’s quiet. 

Because Mikey  _ loves his brother,  _ and the way he made them all know that nothing had fit quite like they did in his world of unconditionals; Raph was always a bit more anxious than he ought to have been for sixteen. And maybe that was partly Mikey’s fault, or maybe some people just  _ love  _ that way; in those busy, worrying ways that question if they’ll ever really slow down and breathe because that’s just how fucking intensely they loved. That was Raph, and it was incredible, and Mikey, stuffing the crumpled wrapper into the pocket of his corduroy overalls, peeks at the stream of texts Leo’s been sending.

“Oh boy,” he sighs, cocking his head and biting his lip with a bit of hesitance as Raph half-turns from the cart, face falling with dread because he just  _ knew- _ “Leo says get Snickers or  _ die, _ bruh!  _ Or die. _ ” 

Leo was as much as a little shit sometimes as Mikey was, only exponentially more chaotic and  _ loud  _ about it, while Micheal himself preferred to slyly inculcate his Little Shit Abilities into the lives of those he came across- frankly it was much more fun that way, and no one got as pissed as when Leo used his. Into the air, Raph flips off Leo, hoping somewhere their brother senses it (maybe he does, a few seconds after, when he sends a poorly angled selfie, grinning with some otherworldly evil energy) and Mikey doubles over cackling, catching his breath later as they bag up their groceries, temporarily blocking Leo’s number. 

The sun gets lower, behind thick and light grey clouds and fog, they catch the bus further downtown and Raph, arm around his brother, dozes in and out of sleep, but still listens anyway to Mikey talk about their costumes for Halloween, and which neighborhoods they’d go to.

“I’m thinkin’ Greenwich. Definitely Greenwich. Sparkling orange light things, a bunch’a fog machines and shit, the  _ aesthetic _ -” He sighs contently, leaning against his brother. “We deserve that kinda beauty, Raph.” 

Every home they’d been in from Bed Stuy to Washington Heights did a pretty shitty job at holidays. Halloween of 2007: one of the most pathetic attempts, was a trip to the gas station, and few complexes, sugar-deprived and costumeless. 

Raph grins, almost wistfully to himself, nodding slowly in the old soulful way Raph  _ would  _ when he knew and  _ wanted.  _ And when their stop lets off at the pharmacy he’s still smiling, eager and holding it in a little. 

Because Raph thinks he’s too old for it and that’s why he  _ needs  _ Mikey around to tell him to screw ageism hard and eat candy corn and Airheads as they tug a cart loose and dump their stuff inside. 

“Yeah, well... people don’t look at me like they look at you guys, Mikey,” Raph mumbles, folding in. 

There’s a pause, and for a moment Mikey’s instinct is to joke about it and tell his brother that’s dumb but-

His eyes soften a little. He places a gentle hand on his brother’s back, staring up at him. It’s somehow enough and, in the depths of Mikey’s heart, soul and mind, he says  _ eff you _ to insecurities and all the people who put them in his brother. 

They leave all the rest unsaid. 

Mikey gives his brother space, roaming the place and haphazardly tossing things he never would use into the cart and groaning when Leo, freshly unblocked, shoots him another text.

**Incoming 5:35pm**

**Neon Leon**

**+917-450-3372**

pick up ur insulin 

pops says he cant find them:/ 

but did raph get snickers? xoxo

**Idiot Sammich**

**+917-924-6873**

idk how to tell u this :/

**Neon Leon**

**+917-450-3372**

the bITch

**Idiot Sammich <3**

**+917-924-6873**

but i sncuk sum in, he didnt notice ;) :P

**Neon Leon**

**+917-450-3372**

fucking superb! ur mind Ily

**Idiot Sammich <3**

**+917-924-6873**

ily be home in a bit.

He shoves his phone away, and sags, suddenly exhausted.

CVS has less of the ambiance and more of the distinguished smell of antibiotics and gum and bandaids and cute old people like Raph trying to get home before Jeopardy, Mikey figures, holding the door for a couple who smile- not  _ at  _ him, but like a few inches from where his face is, cheeky gapped tooth grin and all- and nod a  _ thank you  _ to that empty space. 

Old people liked Mikey, in the same kind of intensity that Mikey liked old people- the ones that weren’t actively ruining the system and had to squint to figure you out and pinched at you and fed you extraordinarily well, anyway. Like Ms. M, the blind lady Raph helps out on weekends.

Rounding the corner to the pharmacy counter, Mikey plucks a few boxes of syringes from a rack and something in the pit of his stomach shifts. But it’s short lived and passes in the moment he looks over his shoulder to see Raph combing through his short twists, chin resting in his hand. 

“Ya gotta be- okay  _ miss _ . Look my dad- you guys literally just called.” 

Briefly, Mikey looks over his shoulder at Raph as he leans over the counter, running a hand down his face. 

“No, he’s not- it’s _Lou.”_ He straightens out, seeming to remember himself a bit, partially turning to Mikey with a tightened smile, “Uh, yes ma’am.”

And Mikey- just gives him a thumbs up from afar. More power to his brother; Pops would do it, but the language barrier was frustrating as hell for him, and Raph or Leo often tagged along with him to make sure it was somewhat smooth, for good measure anyway, translating where they could and making do with what they couldn’t. It sucked a lot- communication. It wasn’t like Japanese was all over Queens and, alternatively, it wasn’t like English speaking people really  _ listened. _

Hands stuffed in the pockets of his overalls, Mikey glances up and down the shelves to his right, aimlessly at first as he hums to an early Christmas station playing lowkey over the intercoms, until his gaze is caught. He tilts his head to the side, letting it hang there as his eyes drift from the chapsticks to body glitter, packaged and placed right next to the eyeliner and bath bombs, lips parting in soft wonder. And a bit subconsciously, he reaches up to them-

-and hesitates when, beside him, a woman watches him sideways, tucking short hair behind her ear and smiling nothing short of awkwardly. 

He smiles back and feels like he’s choking on it. Drops his hands back into his pockets and turns on the heels of his worn out sneakers, eyes meeting Raphael’s before falling to the painted and stained tiles of the pharmacy. There’s something insecure and wildly unsaid between them again, between the way Mikey seems to conceal himself, peculiar and  _ wrong.  _

* * *

“The thing is- I don’t  _ wanna  _ be a Frankenstein monster. Again, y’know? But I also can’t tell Donnie. I mean, he’d be crushed!” 

Mikey nods, kicking up leaves and pebbles as the streetlamps flicker on. Raph tosses his arms up, swinging their groceries unintentionally, and Mikey ducks, still listening intently with the same patience Pops had with them. 

“And  _ I,  _ dunno,  _ maybe  _ I could tell ‘em but-" in that moment, something quiets and swells in Raph at once as he lets the plastic bags sway at his sides, burrowing his hands into the front pocket of his grey hoodie, barely lifting heavy eyes to Mikey, “-look between you. And me. An’- and Pops an’ Leo...this year’s gotta be special for Donnie. So...y’know. Frankenstein it is.” 

Strangely, the street seems to fall quiet, only a few cars cruising by as it begins to drizzle, fog rising stories above where the two brothers stood, suddenly faced rather terribly with some ugly fraction of their reality. Lips pressed in a firm line, Raph shakes his head, and plopping on the bench at the bus stop in unison they sit and begin to think-

In the drizzling rain and fog and exhaust from passing cars and cigarette smoke-

Of lots of things, of ifs and maybes and so on; of things they wished or willed or wanted.

Raph wanted to be Rocky or Killmonger for Halloween and Mikey wasn’t sure  _ what  _ he wanted. To go home, maybe. Give Donnie whatever he needed so his body would  _ stop not working, _ and cook chicken fajitas, and play Go Fish again and-

The bus comes and it halts their thinking. Instead, they share earbuds and listen to slow, jazzy beats live streamed, on their feet and swaying, half-asleep by the time they’d gotten into Jackson Heights. 

When they do get home, finally, its warmth is something heavenly and indescribably so, so unbelievably  _ theirs  _ and familiar that way, Leo staring the two of them down for a moment before cracking a smile.

“Sure as  _ hell  _ took you long enough,” he says, leaning lazily against the doorframe, his unseasonable Hawaiian shirt falling off his should a bit. “You guys missed  _ so-ho  _ much in Daddy to the Full. God, I love  Mauricio. ”

Plowing in, Mikey gasps, watching the credits roll in horror “Holy crap, I  _ missed  _ it? Oh please tell me you recorded!” 

“Duh,” Leo drawls somewhere behind him, lifting the grocery bags Mikey abandoned and searching through them for candy, “Donnie called everything though, spoiled the finale. Because he’s a bastard.” 

Mikey shakes his book bag from off his shoulders, letting it fall to the carpet, his focus entirely consumed by  _ Daddy to the Full  _ without really knowing why as he leaned against the back of the couch; it was Dad’s show, really, but shamelessly they’d all sorta adopted it into their vast circle of binge-worthy, drop-everything-you’re-doing-to-watch kinda shows. And Mikey understands now, six seasons and fourteen fake deaths later, why Pops was so glued to this stuff. Maybe it was the fact that it had a bunch of dads being dads with their kids and just seemed to scream affinity, or some other thing Mikey couldn’t think about, really. 

Donnie’s sprawled out asleep on the couch and Pop is doing karaoke in the bathroom down the hall over the rushing sound of the shower. And it’s just  _ home _ \- really, that's all it is. Raph comes up beside him, ruffling Donnie’s hair.

“You okay?” he tilts Donnie’s head up by his chin, inspecting him with a soft and keen look.

And Donnie swats his hand away, sitting up partially, face dull. “I’m hungry.”

“There’s waffles and odon noodles,” Raph says, an artless smile curving his lips, and shoves Don’s face back.

Accepting it, Donnie falls back onto the couch, sinking into the various pillows, burying himself under blankets, only the glow of his phone lighting up through the covers. “Leo burnt the waffles,” he reports blandly, “to literally no one’s surprise.” 

From the kitchen, unbagging the groceries, Leo flips his twin off. “Totally unfair- the  _ toaster  _ is  _ broken,  _ okay.”

“That’s because you broke it,” Mikey quips, a shit-eating grin on his lips as he turns away from trying to climb onto the couch in an attempt to get on Raph’s shoulder. His brother notices and, shaking his head, tugs Mikey the rest of the way on till his legs are dangling, kicking against Raph’s back as he scoots forward a little, lifting the covers from Donnie’s face. 

It’s screwed up and tight, his phone, with a tutorial playing on how to successfully identify aliens, forgotten in his loose grip. 

“Dee?” He peels the blankets back slowly, and watches Donnie pop open an eye like a the living  _ dead  _ or something. 

_ “Speaking,”  _ he says in a hiss, ready, probably, to kill Mikey- if he even notices, cupping Donnie’s face tenderly. 

“Okay so- are you listening? Just today- we saw Kirby and he thinks he can hook you up with some arm crutches- isn’t he  _ darling? _ ”

Raph hefts him a little, his smile like it always is- big and rivaling  _ stars  _ with the girth of it. “Says a guy from work’s got some.”

Closing his eyes, Donnie can’t  _ not  _ smile too, raising a fist and giving a mellow celebratory  _ woo!  _ before letting his arm flop back down across the blanket. 

“I knew we fucked heavy with him for a reason,” Leo calls from the kitchen, head in the fridge. 

“Who are we fucking with?” 

In the doorway to the living room, their dad stands in nothing but a towel, genuine concern in the way his eyes dart around their apartment. And Mikey practically falls off Raph, breath hitching as he bursts into tears, cackling. Raph catches him by the foot. 

“April’s dad- but not-” Leo shuts the fridge, “Not like that. Ew- stop  _ eavesdropping.”  _

Lou shrugs. “It is my business who my sons fuck with.”

_ “Stop…”  _ Mikey wheezes, blood rushing to his head before Raph lets him drop, stifling his own snorts until he’s got tears in his eyes, too. Mostly because Dad barely knew what he was saying when he’d repeat Leo- or he  _ did a _ nd wanted to punish them all by saying it a criminal amount of times. Mikey figures it’s the latter as he catches his breath on the floor. 

“What, you wanna compare lists?” Leo asks, “Spoiler alert, mine’s is  _ way  _ longer than yours. Full offense.”

From partly under the blankets, Donnie snickers.

Leo and Pops had this thing. A streak of trying to annoy each other and bicker pettily to the freaking _death_ , and the rivalry, which may or may not have started when Leo was five, was _days long_ sometimes. The last time, Leo created a fake Tinder profile of a broker guy who worked in One World Trade, catfished and set their own father up on a blind date, in which it wasn’t really a date- it was just Leo waiting at a buffet in Harlem in a baggy suit he got from Bayside Thrift Shop, video recording Pop’s reaction with a terrible, god-awful pick-up line. The tape never captured the entirety of what Leo said, because their dad practically strangled him in the middle of the buffet on Wing Wednesday night. 

It was brutal.

And when Mikey’s vision clears, and he sits up, the two are staring each other down from separate rooms- Leo’s cocky and smug from the kitchen and Pop’s promising death from here in the living room, eyes still locked as he sits in his favorite arm chair.

Taking an earbud out and glancing warily up from his phone, Donnie’s brows furrow. “You...wanna put clothes on?”

Pops, still glaring but at no one in particular, grunts, turning the volume up to the T.V. 

“Disgusting,” Donnie mumbles.

“Use your words, Pop,” Raph chimes in, dragging Mikey across the carpet and into the kitchen, “And please- act somewhat civil an’ put some pants on.”

* * *

He never did put pants on, and not even fifteen minutes into House Hunters Beachfront Property, both he and Donnie were knocked out. Mikey swivels on the stool to their kitchen table, fiddling with an old Rubix cube, covered in stickers- a trademark of anything Mikey could get his hands on, really- and probably solved a billion and one times between him and Donnie. 

Leo does his homework at the table, humming Kpop, and Raph goes through junkmail. And in the quiet, Mikey tries to find something to think about, though he guesses he was already thinking, figuring out how to occupy his brain in the lulling half-silence of their apartment. 

“You guys think Kirby could really get Donnie’s crutches free?” Leo asks, suddenly and strangely quiet, still looking into his text book, and only lifting his eyes to his brothers for a small, vulnerable moment, “I mean, he’s  _ Kirby _ \- of course he would but-”

But things rarely came free to them, and Leo’s got something built up in him, which Mikey wishes he didn’t know, that makes him doubt kindness. They’d known April since, like, forever, and her love was something sure-fire and tightly gripping and pretty much wonderful to have- and Mikey never doubted it. But he was Mikey and Leo’s Leo and he, underneath everything that was relaxed about him, had a harder time relying on what love could do.

Donnie’s his twin, and they shared pain that way. 

Raph nudges Leo, eyes searching his, earnest and hopeful in the way he half smiles. “Hey, don’t trip, man…” 

Leo brushes his forearm across his nose, lips twisting with some kind of uncertainty Mikey wasn’t used to. “What if...like. It gets worse- because. Because  _ whatever  _ it is, whenever we figure it out. It’s- it is. And we need more things and we can’t  _ get  _ more things- I know Karai’s got us too but...”

He rubs at the back of his neck, staring downcast at his textbook. Karai was wonderful like that, but she was also an ocean, time-zone and a facetime away from her little brothers, all adopted into her life just as it was starting up abroad. And still she made all the room in her heart for the four of them, and maybe even more, her love sturdy and ironclad. Mikey  _ misses her,  _ more than he ever could say. 

They sit, feeling extraordinarily heavy, and Mikey stops spinning in the chair, picking at the stickers on the Rubix Cube. None of them knew exactly how muscular atrophy worked- not even Pops could really grasp it, though he tried as hard as any father could- and Raph was reading just about every book on it that he could, in the same ways he’d research sugar levels and heart murmurs, till he couldn’t stay awake, at the kitchen table under the light that never stops flickering. Donnie knew more, and what he did know, all of it, he didn’t say. It was scary as hell and they hate it, and don’t talk about it and Mikey prefers it that way. Not like this, sitting in the quiet kitchen with this sitting on their chests and sinking into their stomachs. 

“Then...we’re here?” Mikey hears himself say, feels himself smile with a shrug. “We just be here for’em and for each other.”

It’s enough to bring an undaunted fire back into Leo’s eyes, set and confident and a little more sure as he runs a hand down his face, “Well, shit!” he says, clapping his hands together and, just like that, all back in one piece. “I need a Bourbon.” 

He grabs his Mott's juice box. 

Raph picks one up from the table too, and Mikey figures he should; they clink their boxes and chug them down. 

(And from the couch, Donnie smiles smally, sending out some message of love to the universe for his brothers. It washes out the little fears and the big fears and he pretends he’s asleep again when Raph scoops him up and takes him to bed.)

* * *

**Thursday, October 18th**

The sun comes up different in autumn. It comes up lacking the fire of the summer, with dull purples along the horizon instead that bleed into soft blues and soft oranges and greens and Mikey watches it all happen in the backseat of Raph’s silver Honda. It was  _ ancient.  _ Like 1989 ancient. The first car Pops ever owned coming to New York. 

Leo tosses papers out the window like throwing stars and they applaud his precision when the newspapers land perfectly on the stoops to the homes in Woodside, the sun rising behind them, illuminating the bricks and panels. It’s crisp, and the sun melts away frost in the windows and trees. 

“Beautiful,” Mikey breathes, tipping against Leo’s back, peeking his head as far out as he could, cold air against his face, pink undertones beneath his brown skin. 

And cheekily, Leo shrugs, “Why thank you, I try.”

From the front seat, in the rear-view mirror, Raph’s placid smile drops mumbling under his breath, and Donnie flings a loose rubber band at Leon.

“Yes Bravo, Leo. Can you do the honors of shutting the hell up? Because you missed two houses.” 

“Ha.” Leo says dryly, chucking the papers out the window, “Only missed one.” 

“Three,” Mikey corrects without the ounces of unadulterated glee leaving his voice as he does, “And not  _ you,  _ Leo. I’m talkin’ about he  _ sky.” _

Turning to where Donnie sits in the passenger seat, reading off the house numbers, Mikey asks, “Does it always look like this?” 

“Actually it’s lookin’ more like  _ four-"  _ Raph slows the car, “Jesus Christ, Leo.” 

“You're  _ driving too fast-" _

“Hey, I got a heavy foot, okay? An’ maybe ‘cause we got school in an hour an’ I don’ wanna be late.” 

“Oh shit yeah, 1345, 1347- yeah Mikey, it’s always like that, you’re just always asleep- 1353  _ and  _ 1355, too,” Donnie winces, fake pouting at Leo as he clicks to unlock the car, “Go on.” 

“True…” Mikey laments wistfully out of tune with his brothers’ conversations, slouching back as Leo shoots his twin a glare, opening the door and hauling his bag of papers. 

And he wishes he had his sketchbook on him. Deadline was frighteningly close for the art show at NYU and, like with most things his brain knew were important- impossibly, incredibly, undeniably  _ crucial  _ to literally everything in his orbit of the universe- he got stuck. Blocked, and tragically uninspired.

_ Still.  _

Raph says to look in life itself, and Mikey, in spite of how amazing it is, can’t connect it to his art; to something he could absorb and release into one form of art. 

Slouching further in his chair, Mikey whimpers, in the way that makes Raph turn around almost in an instant. 

“You okay?” 

“Still artblocked,” Mikey whines, at this point nearly slouched off the backseat, “Tragically, inevitably  _ blocked.”  _

“Yikes,” Donnie says, and Mikey’s not sure if he means at  _ him  _ or Leo hurling a newspaper at a chained dog, “Still nothing?”

Raph gives a lopsided smile, “You’ll get it, bro.” 

And Mikey mirrors that in the way he smiles back, on the verge of thanking his brother when Leo yanks open the car door, jumping inside, “Did no one see me about to get mauled, or are you all just terrible fucks?” 

“Oh. Oh no we saw,” Donnie says with his usual nonchalance, scrolling through his phone, “And you definitely were not going to get  _ mauled.  _ And if we’re assuming you would’ve been,  _ we  _ would’ve driven off about five minutes ago. _ ”  _

It’s a bit of a half-truth; they’ve all deserted Leo at some point for all the dumb shit he gets himself into, but that was when they were kids, and the older they get their perspective on brotherhood gains a tight knit sort of depth none of them openly acknowledge, but it’s always there and present in all the small things they’d do, and all the ways they just  _ knew  _ each other without even  _ knowing _ \- Mikey could barely word it, but their connection ran deep as hell. 

Leo flips Donnie off, putting his seat-belt on as Raph barks a laugh, pressing on the gas a few times before the car starts to go, speeding down the street.

The houses star blurring into one another and the trees become a kaleidoscope of warm color, Raph plays his music through a small speaker that Donnie found and fixed, and they ride in silence. 

The whipped cream melts slowly on his pancakes, sprinkles floating down and into syrup, and Donnie’s coffee is black. It’s warm in the diner, cozy and dim like something tucked away though it sat at the exposed cornerstone of the street. Still, it felt exclusively theirs sometimes, maybe because that's where Pops asked them, after school on some ordinary Wednesday in November, if they’d like to be his forever family, Karai smiling eagerly at all their little astonished faces. 

And they’ve been coming here every November especially, and all the moments between and around that.

Like for breakfast before school, already exhausted and cracking jokes and humming along to old familiar 80’s songs, chasing away sleep with small talk or big talk or talking about nothing at all, really.

“So...we’re probably  _ not  _ gonna make it to school on time,” Leo says after three pancakes and hot chocolate, and sometime after Donnie’s fourth cup of coffee. 

They all grunt in unanimous agreement.

“Which would be, between us four- five if we’re still getting April- fourteen lates, am I right?”

“You’re right,” Raph sighs, leaning over his plate, “Shit they got rid of moon pie?”

“Yeah, sorry Red,” says a girl from behind Mikey, her laugh that follows hoarse and familiar that way- and he sits up, smiling as he turns to her, “You were actually the only person in  _ Queens  _ to eat that shit.” 

Angel Bridge cocks her head as Raph’s eyes narrow on her, her braids falling over her shoulder.

“Shouldn't you be in school?” Raph accuses and leans back in the booth, folding his arms.

“Fuck off,” she drawls, and Mikey snorts.

“How’s your pancakes, baby?” she asks him.

With a mouthful of whipped cream and sprinkles, Mikey nods gratefully and gives her two thumbs up, “Fluffy.” 

Mikey could never quite understand Angel Bridge the way his brothers did; simply, she was enigmatic to him, coming around to vape with Leo on the stoop with other kids in the neighborhood and disappearing just as quick. 

And Mikey knew his oldest brother had a thing for her once, like two years ago- but Raph, alarmingly, had a thing for anyone that could top him. 

Her tattoos on her wrist, the scales of a serpent, show when the sleeves of her sweater rise up as she reaches past him and drops a pod in front of Leo.

He grabs them up from the table before Donnie can. 

Angel’s smile says  _ I owe you,  _ and blossoms with a gratitude Mikey's not used to seeing in her. 

He watches her tattoos intently, that seem so much a part of her, like they’d go deeper than her skin, on her fingers and up her neck. Some logical part in Mikey's headspace says not to stare, but wonder and terrible social skills thoughtfully parts his lips and he grabs her hand anyway. 

“What do these mean?” he asks, ignoring the way Raph pulls his hand from hers. 

But the way Angel’s eyes soften, not shaped, instead, by hardened defense, it makes Mikey think she’s wanted to talk about it for a long, long time. 

“Coordinates,” she says after a brief few seconds of silence, staring down at her knuckles with affinity and such fondness it makes Mikey’s chest ache, “Where my parents met- made me. Then…” she points to her other hand, “Where my mother died.”

_ Oh hell,  _ Mikey thinks, not regretting, somehow, that he’s asked. 

She takes in a breath, as if she hasn't pondered these things for times uncounted, like they've just gotten there.

Mikey takes her silence as leeway, tilting his head, “And the rest-?”

“Are...private.” Angel rights his head, and pulls down at her sleeve, “For now.”

Raph takes the check after she’s gone, hidden and all but disappeared again. And Mikey would think they'd never see her till New Years maybe, if Angel hadn't slipped out of the diner as he and he brothers were leaving, hugging herself as she leans into Mikey with a wooden kind of smile. 

The ones that look like they hurt bittersweetly.

“I think I’ll tell you one day,” she says hesitantly, close enough so only Mikey can hear her words, and smell her nicotine and bubble gum, “This shit on my body is my art. And...my art. Is inspired by my story- a-and other people's stories, y’know? I couldn't tell you at once.” 

And leaving him silent, and thinking, Angel turns on her heels and doesn't look over her shoulder for him- not once. 

Mikey isn't sure when they'll see Angel Bridge or her mystery ever again, but he snaps a picture of her, walking away , almost without forethought, and, in Raph’s car, jots her every last words. 

They make it to April’s house a quarter to 8. That’s what Raph calls it, because he’s kin with the elderly, and that's also what Donnie calls it because he's Donnie and precise that way.

And Leo says because he’s unabashedly gay, and freaking  _ normal,  _ it’s 7:45.

April’s house is like any house in Queens, but cute and old with green creepers on the bricks that you’d almost believe it was Upper Manhattan instead or Lenox Hill or something. Her parents took care of the place, fake cobwebs and skeletons and perfectly round pumpkins in her yard.

And April comes barreling to the car like a  _ madman _ , sliding into the backseat with him and Leo and, tugging off her ear-muffs, she leans forward a nearly chokes Donnie with a hug from behind.

“I got. The fucking.  _ Job!”  _ she screams as Raph speeds off, bouncing when they hit a pothole and caring the least bit really, as she and Donnie do their handshake- something they picked up in their time as backstage crew in theater.

“Oh my-” Donnie smirks only a little haughtily, “If only someone  _ told  _ you Starbucks would hire you after I erased your employment history, records and...miscellaneous.” 

Mikey all but topples over her, and Raph offers a fist bump before resuming his ‘ten-and-two’. And Leo pats Dee’s shoulders with a measure of due respect. 

Squeezing her tight, Mikey nuzzles his cheek against her jacket, “We’re so proud of you, April,” he says earnestly, like his heart’s overfull and bursting. 

“Ditto.”

Leo ruffles her hair, free from her ponytails in a rare moment, his beaming smile rivaling April's; Mikey studies it from where his head lies on her lap, studies the laughter lines in her forehead and how, and if, they match his brother’s- it’s something that takes his thoughts for some time- or it feels like forever. He just  _ watches,  _ as they all carry on with too many things for Mikey to really keep up with.

April says she's really going to make it on T.V one day, or writing editorials and journals on social constructs and  _ change  _ press and  _ do something;  _ they all believe her profoundly, of course, because she  _ will,  _ and there was nothing not to believe about April O'Neil. 

Mikey’s time moves slow in his thoughts.

And he doesn't notice April staring back with the laughter lines warped into worry, and her smile twisted askew. 

“You good?” she asks softly, and pokes his cheek. 

Sitting up partially Mikey simply cups one side of her face and tilts it in the palish October sunshine, and remembers his plight, and his journey. Looking into April’s eyes he sees innovation and it’s exciting. 

“Do-” he stops.

Pulls out his phone and puts the camera on her.

“Consider this your first...practice interview.” When she snorts, rolling her eyes, Mikey holds her in place by her cheek, “The light's catchin’ you  _ wonderfully.”  _

And April, who is goddess-like in her poise and always at the ready, sits up straighter, tucking a few gelled spirals behind her ear, “Okay, shoot.” 

“Tell me... _ everything,”  _ Mikey breathes, from behind the camera, “Like, your uh...your ambitions!” 

The camera shakes unsteady, and Mikey's brothers fall silent in the car, and April never wavers; it’s majestic and fierce the way she does not stare  _ at  _ his lens but through its vision as if  _ penetrating _ .

And April tells it all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned for more!! lmk what you guys think either here or at my tumblr: @guide-to-the-galaxy!


	3. The Great Inspiring: Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mikey delves into his new-found sense of purpose; something's up with Dee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy you guys are digging this so far. I was so inspired initially by Taizi's fic Problem Child, that I read roughly 3 years? ago, and fell in love with that narrative. And now, I'm here, kinda putting a little spin on it, pulling my own personal experiences in and trying hard to relate what it's like being a teen- and struggling with your art and worth. So I'll stop rambling, if y'all haven't read Problem Child before please do, and also a big, big thank you to my artist Azurenika for being so fabulous and patient with me asfghkl, enjoy buds!

****

**Monday, October 22nd**

Slow beats trickle from his headphones, eclectic rhythm, and it flows into Mikey and his busy headspace like electric honey. 

His things fly off the desk. He pushes them, actually, sorry for all his knickknacks and shit that collides with the carpet-

(Mikey likes to imagine these things feel almost as intensely as he could.) 

-but he had  _ things to do,  _ mind going on 100 and something insanely creative sparking like fireflies and explosions and the beginning of life. He’d shut the door and locked his brothers out and screamed he was sorry about it, and now, spreading his sketches out across his desk- and one long sheet of paper, and two polaroids- Mikey hovers over his brainchild.

Unborn, still kinda developing, not-even-ready-to-be-shown-to-the-outside- _ world  _ brainchild. 

Turns out his brothers, Pinterest, Beyonce, Angel  _ and April all got it the fuck right.  _

Inspiring beyond all limitations, Mikey can draw from them- from life itself maybe. Life in all its ugliness- like the depth of a tattoo- and life in its beauty- like the desire to change journalism and maybe, by  _ god,  _ even the world.

Mikey stares numbly at his sheets of paper before he starts to write.

Names of the people he’s known, and the experiences he wants to gather and absorb. Make a self portrait of all the photographs, a companion piece of their individual stories. 

_ Genius. _

Swiveling in his chair, he watches the bedroom ceiling pensively, listening to Lofi and imagining, and tapping in tune before, in some transition between the melodies, he hears something move strangely. 

It’s not a crash, from down the hall, but it’s the muffled voices, raised in alarm that pulls Mikey from his muse and back into the realms of his bedroom, in their tiny apartment. 

There’s always noise- arguments from across the hall, music from two doors over, and Mikey’s perfecting his Creole a bit from the Charles’ below his bedroom- but the pitched voices from doors down bray back and forth and, curiously, Mikey slips past his door to follow it..

And when he’s down the hall, brows rutted, Mikey’s hand hovers over the door, fingers lightly grazing the chipped wood of the bathroom door as he listens, and watches through the slit as his dad kneels beside Dee, keeping his head off the floor.

_ “Donatello you must  _ try-"

“Please _ \- just. I can’t- I can’t feel it, how’m I supposed to move it if I can't even…”  _

A shadow moves into view. Mikey holds his breath. 

_ “Raph, get ice for your brother. Please.”  _

Mikey scrambles away from the door a few skipped heartbeats and heavy breaths too late as Raph swings open the bathroom door, and stops short of himself, eyes widening on Mikey. 

He shuts the door quickly.

“Ah shit.” 

In a quick dive, Mikey tries to go for the door; quicker, Raph scoops him up.

And curse bigger, older sibling capabilities. 

Mikey tries to wiggle his way out in vain all the way to the kitchen where Raph finally sets him down just as Mikey bites down on his shoulder.

“What the  _ hell _ \- your teeth are  _ crazy  _ sharp,” Raph tries and fails to joke, breaking a nervous smile the longer Mikey glares up at him.

“Yours’re way sharper, you jerk- why can’t I just-"

_ “No,”  _ Raph, face now set and stern and lacking amusement, says as he turns to the freezer, “‘S off limits- everything’s fine.” 

Folding his arms, Mikey rolls his eyes.

“It gets less believable the more you say it, you know.”

“Yeah well-" he takes a bag of frozen peas and shuts the freezer, “Pops says-"

“I’m his fucking  _ brother,”  _ Mikey hisses, and only half-hurt in the way he does.

Raph towers him by a head or two, but Mikey holds his own for good measure, and narrows his eyes up at his brother, inclining his head and puffing out his small chest. 

“Don’t curse like that…” Raph sighs remorsefully, for lack of any defense, and scratches his neck, other hand resting on, and covering, Mikey’s shoulder, heavy and steadying, “Just...order ‘few pizzas, wait up f’ Leo, a’ight?” 

And Mikey wants to tell his brother to go  _ fuck himself,  _ but something loving and tried and true aches for Raph anyway, and so his eyes lose their fire and his stance loosens. 

He puts on a feeble smile and thumbs across his nose, glancing up at Raph, “Sure...sure, yeah.” 

Raph smirks back in some way that tries to say  _ thank you,  _ or tries to be sure. It falters as Dee cries out from the bathroom, and he turns, patting Mikey’s face before heading down the hall.

Briefly, Pop’s voice is loud throughout the apartment, before Raph shuts the door behind him and leaves Mikey standing alone in the kitchen. 

Leo gets home eventually, bubble tea and a bag of candy he always took home for Mikey in hand, and smelling like the cold and maybe Sashimi. 

He raises a brow at Mikey, and turns his head down the hall. 

“Kicked out?” 

“Yep.”

“Sucks, I know,” Leo says, taking his earmuffs off, still looking down the hall, “What happened?”

Mikey shrugs, feeling a lot of unusual... _ things _ as he watches the television blankly. 

Leo’s Donnie's  _ twin-  _ and he barely gets an in on what goes on after Pops and Raph shut the door; Mikey stands no chance in that regard, and hates the way it brings an unwieldy sorta atmosphere, thick and hard to find placement in. 

And sometimes Mikey begs all that’ll listen for a bit of his brother’s cool; Leo holds it down like second nature, in the way his face laxes as he gives a thoughtful look, still, down the hallway. 

He gets it- why Pops never lets him be in the know like Raph is- but that only lessens the sting of it enough to be bearable. And he’s never quite sure  _ how  _ Leo feels. 

“I’m going in-” his brother announces with an edge to his voice, and remembering himself, Leo flashes an easy smile, “You ordered pizza?” 

Mikey gives a thumbs up, still not trusting himself yet to speak, because it’ll come out warbled and teary and sloppy and he really plans on not fucking doing that tonight. And Leo disappears for only a second before Raph emerges with Donnie hanging off his back, staring unamused at the floor a few feet below him. 

“Oh my god. Put me down,” he mumbles emotionlessly, and makes a soft punch against Raph’s back.

“Hell no.” 

“Aww and here I thought you were  _ dead  _ or something,” Leo jokes, ruffling Dee’s curls with a cheeky grin, “And before you say it: just inside, I know.” 

Donnie slaps his hand away, “Go absolutely fuck yourself, Leo.” 

“C’m- really, Donnie? Be nice,” Raph chides placing his brother in a kitchen chair, and to Leo, “You got movie snacks?” 

“...ha. ‘Bout that.” 

“Great job, Leon.” 

Mikey, having inhaled every tear and the very onset of a meltdown his body was planning, waves the bag of candy Leo tossed at him earlier, “We can use this-”

_ “No,”  _ says Leo, climbing over the backside of the couch and sliding in next to Mikey effortlessly, “This is exclusively yours, Miquel- okay.” 

“He gives them to Renet anyway-"

_ “Dee,”  _ Mikey whines, and before Raph can jump down his throat and back up again over it- and before Donnie could double down on it, explaining the sciences behind hypoglycemia and shit- their buzzer goes off and Mikey thanks his  _ stars  _ for it, jumping up from the couch.

And he slides the tip from his jean jacket pocket, undoing all the locks Donnie installed.

He opens the door, counting the ones, chuckling to himself.

“Sorry, hang on a min-" 

Looking up, Mikey loses himself, his words and his entire grip on reality itself- swears the world tilts on its axis- throat ceased, lips parted enough for his soul to scurry out and depart from him.

From the living room Donnie is wheezing and Mikey hopes to  _ god  _ herself that Woody Dirkens remains as clueless as usual, standing in the doorway with a smile perplexed and his eyes darting away from Mikey. 

_ Shit. Shit, shit,  _ holy _ shit.  _

“Omigosh- wow. Ha, I...was just really uh-"

“No problemo, dude. Spaced out-" he laughs, and it’s like goddamn butter or Miracle Whip or something as he combs through blonde hair with a half smile, “I...totally get it.” 

_ “Yeah,”  _ Mikey swallows, “Well, hey. Won’t keep  _ you-  _ since you’re. On your way.” 

“Well, uh.” Woody Dirkens rocks on his heels and sniffs, “The tip. Unless I’m doing a shit job then by all means-"

Mikey nearly chokes on nothing, remembering himself, “No! No, ahhhh ha, that’s  _ no,”  _ he laughs, with more raspiness than his voice usually’s got, extending the seven one dollar bills out with a crooked, gapped tooth smile, “Here. Tip.” 

Woody chuckles to himself, shaking his head and handing Mikey two boxes.

“If uh...if the order’s wrong? ‘Cause, like, it’s pretty busy tonight- Cisco mighta fucked it up so- number’s on the receipt.”

“No shit,” Donnie says to his brothers from the couch and they all stifle snorts and Mikey wants to  _ kill them _ . 

“Gotcha- great!” he says instead through his smile, keeping it there like a maniac till Woody Dirkens and his stupid, stupid  _ face,  _ is halfway to the elevator. 

Turning slowly with a twitching eye to his brothers, Mikey promptly flips them all of, marching to the kitchen with the pizzas.

He sits the whole entirety of Ratatouille in humiliation and, after Leo’s conked out and Raph is snuggling Dee instead of the pillow, Mikey slides off the couch, says goodnight to Pops and, in the confines of his own bedroom, he stares at Woody’s name written amongst his list of Great Inspiration: Self Portrait. 

Only it wasn't just amongst. 

It was at the freaking top. 

He lets his body flop against his mattress and groans into the blankets.

* * *

**  
Tuesday October 23rd**

Six photographs and lengthy talks with classmates and his art teacher and his mailman and a lunch lady later, and his Great Inspiring was coming together, slow and sure and steadily as leaves continued to fall and daylight faded sooner. 

He has his sketches and his recordings, and sometimes, Mikey feels a bit wiser every time because of them. 

Still, other times, Mikey feels incredibly dumb.

“I’m not  _ in love  _ with a ‘white boy’.”

“You so  _ are-  _ oh Jesus.” 

“He’s a bit’a Italian on his dad’s side!”

_ “Oh my god! No!  _ One fourth Italian? Get out.”

Mikey buries his face further in his oversized black turtleneck, looking through the costume section of a Good Will, hiding from April’s  _ knowing eyes _ . Another phenomenal thing of womanhood he's noticed in her.

Secretly, Mikey was  _ always  _ forever fascinated by April; maybe not having a mom he could remember, and only seeing his sister without the lagging of bad connection thrice a year, maybe he was lacking real understanding of women- it made him hyper-attentive to their shared quirks, and made his art of them come more alive that way.

April pulls a devil costume out, showing it to him.

“Nah, generic. You deserve pizzazz.” 

“True…” 

They flip through some more, matching sneakers shuffling against torn thrift shop carpet. 

“He’s a junior anyway and that would be....a no so-" Mikey shrugs, “But he could work wonders for my project though.” 

April laughs quietly, in the way she does when she’s disbelieving, but choosing to be nonverbal about said disbelief, “But forreal though. I wanna know about this art thingy."

“Full disclosure?”

“Fuck yeah, full disclosure. Spill it  _ all.”  _

He eyes a few D.C costumes, tilting his head at a few, “Uh... _ I  _ dunno _.  _ Kinda only makes sense up here.”

Tapping his head, Mikey moves through the rack, “But. It’s basically like. Humans Of New York, right? Interview, snap a pic. Only...now. I wanna use all these pics, of...of all these people who make up my life- even if I only seen ‘em  _ once-  _ and make a self portrait. Side piece’s the recording of the interviews ‘cause it’s gotta be techy and shits. Oh, am I rambling? I feel...rambly.” 

He stops, realizing April’s fallen out of step with him, a few genres of costumes behind, her mouth agape and curving up into an thrilling kind of smile.

“Holy  _ hell,  _ Mikey! That’s- and you put  _ me in that?! _ ” 

Before Mikey can answer, bashfully smiling with a little shrug, April lunges herself at him, squeezing Mikey tight. 

And because she’s April, she cups his face.

“Who else you got in mind?”

Sally Pride was a regular customer at Donna and Jim’s dinner, and radiated the levels of Big Dick Energy more than any mutant or human being possibly could at the little bar, hunched over in a leather jacket that has  _ fur  _ on it- in addition to the slick fur on  _ her-  _ and a toothpick in her mouth. She was, inarguably, camera ready and eye catchingly astounding, and Mikey wants her confidence to bleed into his. 

He takes her glass away and smiles a little when her lips curve up slightly at him, before dropping his eyes just as quick and scurrying back into the kitchen, and for once not because someone might report Donna and Jim for having a 12 year old looking kid as a busboy. 

And her wife, Lindsay, polar opposite of Sally, is reading an Ebook and taking notes on it. She was fluffy looking- like a living marshmallow that had the peculiar undertones of threatened violence in her eyes. So maybe not polar. They both exuded the same energies, Mikey gathers as he shoots one last look over his shoulder at the couple, just in two various different forms.

And  _ god,  _ he wanted them to mentor him.

Three days of staring later and-

“Okay what’s your question? Questions, if you’ve got more than one.”

Mikey freezes, just as he’s about to load up another tray. 

Sally eyes him in a way that makes him pale, as she moves the straw around her finger and eats a french fry. 

“Seriously, kid. Shoot,” her wife says, smirking and swallowed by her orange and black cat Halloween turtleneck sweater, “We really don't mind.” 

Swallowing hard and setting his tray down, Mikey assumes his cover is immensely blown by now and gives up entirely, sagging with a defeated sigh and leaning against the bar top. He bites his lip and makes a yelp in his throat, bouncing a little on his feet. 

“Okay okay so I may have been kinda stalking you two since like  _ June-  _ and that was just because you guys look fucking  _ dynamic-  _ ‘scuse the language- but now I’m two months away from a very,  _ very  _ totally important art exhibit and you....” he takes a long look at the women, who both look beyond stunned and amused simultaneously.

“It would be...an  _ honor _ to feature you guys.” 

Sally Pride drops her fry and grabs his hand and pure  _ joy  _ bursts from her smile as she shakes it, while Lindsay smirks pleasantly, cheek resting against her fist

“Busboy,” Sally practically gasps, and her whiskers twitch delightfully, hands still clasping Mikey’s, “Ugh, wow okay. That’s the cutest fucking thing ever. And  _ hell  _ yeah.”

He looks with exasperation between the two, and finds confirmation in Lindsay's slow nod and wink behind thick square glasses. 

“Anything for our busboy.” 

“She’s a softie,  _ absolutely,”  _ Lindsay mutters behind a mug of black coffee, like Don drinks it, long after everybody else’s cleared out, “Just in leather. It’s a juxtaposition. Irony, I guess."

“And she-" Sally smirks, “Will literally fucking kill you for a wrong look- and that’s after the coffee.” 

Mikey laughs, and his chest feels genuinely  _ warm _ as he listens, jotting things down an watching the little way their pinkies twirled beside each other's. 

“So...obvi you guys are opposites on that spectrum, is there something- like uhh, like advice you can give on maneuvering through differences- sorry if this sounds formal?”

Sally and Lindsay work in a seamless mechanism, neither one over talking the other or missing a beat somehow.

“The thing is…” Sally says, halfway still in thought, “...if you constantly think: “I  _ love  _ this person, and here’s why” it’s  _ pretty  _ damn hard to not  _ want  _ to stick by them, even if you were right. That, like,  _ rarely _ matters in hindsight, okay? Love is  _ so  _ not defined by being right.” 

Sipping her coffee, Lindsay’s lips curve around the mug.

“Most of the time,” she mumbles into the cup, and leans over to steal a kiss.

Mikey snaps the picture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Mikey...we've all been there. I was super excited to introduce Sally and Lindsay in this fic. I think we all have those mentors in our lives that're too amazing to even be real humans- and most of mine come from very strong, easy-going women like them so. Yeah ha
> 
> Also check out my bud's art @ azurenikadoodles.tumblr.com!


	4. Interlude: Of Makeup and Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikey's never been one to shy away from what he wants- not something like this, anyway. But sometimes it's just...hard. And thank God he's got his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief inteude of sorts to focus on Mikey’s little self exploration and whatnot! Featuring April and Renet :))

**Thursday, October 25th**

The building shakes with the booming laughter of the Krauss’ apartment one floor below Mikey, and he squeezes past his neighbor and her girlfriend- slow dancing in their cigarette smoke to some music three doors down- smiling politely as he does because Beth is pretty cool most of the time, and hasn't seen Harper since college started. 

And slow dances were also cute as hell. 

He gets it, wishes the hallways were just a bit wider so they could dance freely, and lets Beth tug at one of his wet curls when he finally makes it past them. 

“Hey,” she calls just before he can get his key in the first lock, her fingers grazing over her scalp, “Tell Raph easy on the braids next time for me, a’ight?”

Chuckling with a nod, Mikey slips into their apartment, soaked and cold and craving sleep for a change, the minute the warmth of home hits and sinks into him. Extra shifts at Jim and Donna’s meant zero down time after school and- he  _ really  _ needs to learn how to sleep standing up on the bus like Dee would. 

Pops is snoring in his armchair; the television flickers across his face and across the darkened apartment, and Mikey hums to a commercial as he strolls to the kitchen, eats because he probably should, and drags himself into his and Raph’s room.

He’s just about ready to collide face first onto the bed when he notices a bag there, uneven and jagged torn piece of line paper taped to it.

Mikey touches it lightly- the paper- and reads it over.

_ Kinda get a discount or whatever, also you really thought browser history goes away? Love you numbnut. _

Breathing a grin, Mikey shakes his head and tears into the bag.

It’s makeup. Primer, foundation, eyeliner- filling the bag. Something bubbles inside him, starting from his boots and into his chest and it makes him  _ scream. _

“Omigosh,” he says numbly, looking at himself, at his reflection under the harsh light of their bathroom.

He’s got a knack for the art of makeup; for shading and blending. His lashes, though, need  _ work,  _ work. 

Snagging his phone he shoots a text to the only two people he knew that were currently available to rescue him from his unfortunate affliction.

**Orange Crush**

**+917-924-6873**

EMERGENCY HAVING CRISIS!!!

**Incoming 8:44 pm**

**OJ**

**+917-129-7654**

!!??

**Tilleys**

**+917-774-6532**

oh no baby what u do???

**Orange Crush**

**+917-774-6532**

Just meet @ aprils???

brng ALL your makeup shit okay tilleys?

**OJ**

**+917-129-7654**

oh god

**Tilleys**

**+917** **-774-6534**

MAKEOVER BITCHES

Stuffing everything in a duffle bag, Mikey writes a quick sloppy thank you and texts his brothers a million hearts before slipping out the apartment into the cold of an autumn night, his breath frozen before him as his feet pound the sidewalk.

He loves running, could do it for hours if his hypoglycemia wasn't a factor (seventh grade field day proved you can't eat chocolate and run and not throw up). The air’s cool and wet and the ground’s slick under his sneakers. 

April’s house is close, and the bright orange glow of her street welcomes Mikey as he turns onto Oak Ave. It’s pretty, got lots of trees and fairy lights and toilet paper in them; he gazes at the decorations, placidly smiling as he reaches April’s stoop. 

Her aunt opens the door, and it smells like apples and-

“Curry?” Mikey flashes a knowing smile, pulling away from Beth.

“Curry,” she affirms with a grimace, “It...was an attempt. You still gotta show me the whole...spice control.” 

Truthfully Beth Anne O’neil was a terrible,  _ trying,  _ cook- and an angel for coming in when Kirby and April really needed her. And, pathetically like most times, Mikey finds himself drawn to her simply because she was motherly; maybe it’s why he hugs her again before kicking off his sneakers, fuzzy ghost-clad socks sliding across the wood floors into April's room.

April’s eyes widen on his face, and Renet squeals excitedly, scurrying off the bed to him.

“Wow  _ stellar,”  _ they breathe, their hands hovering over Mikey’s face, inspecting his blending work, “Not bad at all.” 

Sagging a little when Renet steps back, Mikey scratches at his head, “Y’ think so? I peeped it quick in the mirror-"

(Peeped is more like  _ stared for twenty minutes with too much feeling to articulate)  _

“Lashes could use work….totally want to perfect the cateye for Friday…” he groans, “Oh man I was supposed to pick the catsuit up for the  _ other  _ party after  _ work ahhhh,”  _ he makes a frustrated  _ groan _ and lets his head drop on Renet Tilley’s shoulder.

April pouts at him from her bean bag chair, and pats on her spare on. 

“Oh Mikey,” she sighs, “Everything’ll be  _ fine _ . Tilley and I got your shit  _ co-vered.”  _

Renet nods sincerely, their frown as pitying as April's. 

And Mikey kinda knows he’s in good hands right now; Renet did makeup art for literally every school play since they were all in middle school- and for everyone on Halloween period.

Accepting the bean bag chair, Mikey sinks into a little, remembering how short he is momentarily before Renet kneels in front of him and slowly peels off the lashes.

“Let's try a bit more...subtle?” they say cheerfully, tilting their head to the side to get an angle, “Bolder lashes are hella uncomfy the first time, trust me.”

April hums in agreement, picking at her aunt’s curry chicken and egg noodles.

“Way too much curry,” she mumbles to herself and Mikey cracks a smile.

Angling the incline of Mikey’s head by his chin, Renet focuses in, opening their kit.

“It’s gonna be really, really weird- people will say shit and screw ‘em if they do. Just...be calm.” 

Mikey listens to them through closed eyes, because Renet’s every iconic thing he wishes he could accomplish; he’s unabashedly himself, but he  _ cares what people think of him  _ and he’s new at this, at figuring things out and figuring  _ himself  _ out.

He’s only fourteen, but sometimes it feels like, in the way other people like Renet have it together, he should probably have it too. 

Renet’s come into themself, and Mikey is a little jealous of it.

Leo said he's got a lot of time, though, with a small, knowing smile and an arm around Mikey to pull and hold him close.

“Hey, you okay?” April nudges his leg with her foot. 

Mikey opens his eyes, and sees Renet, their short blonde hair falling into their face as they stare into Mikey, offering a small smile.

And Mikey breathes, and nods, seeing himself and grinning impossibly wide.

When he says  _ hell yeah,  _ he means that shit wholeheartedly. Later on he Facetimes Karai about it and she gasps, touching the screen where his face is.

“Holy crap,” she smirks, cool and even and mellowed in a way Mikey could never be, “Mikes, it looks bomb as fuck. Shini  _ has _ to give you some tutorials.” 

They talk on for hours after that, as his brothers drag themselves in from interning at a robotics lab and work, joining him in front of the tiny tablet screen, all chaotically yelling over one another. And Mikey, squished between his siblings, both tangible and across the world someplace, feels incredibly himself and  _ home-  _ completely. 

He falls asleep with the glitter on his cheeks, that dust over them like his moles and freckles and like stars. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh this was refreshing to write. Mostly because I've known tons of guys that were amazing at makeup and kept it under wraps for a while. And that was always sucky to me bc,, they were *good* and shouldn't have had to hide that.
> 
> Also: I know next to nothing about the ins and out of cosmetics so I hope I did it some justice :D


	5. Interlude: Bee Stings and What it Means to be Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raph's not really sure sometimes where he fits in. Where he belongs sometimes. In which Raph ventures back home- again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In another interlude, see what Raph's up to. I really, really love rottmnt Raph, okay? Like he is the epitome of a perfect boy and he just loves and cares for his family so much. So here's a little blip of Raph's life a little removed from his brothers and Pop.

After school, every Thursday, Raph says he’s going to work at the animal shelter in Brooklyn. 

And after school, every Thursday, Raph does not. 

He meets his brothers by the same pizza place a few blocks from his school, gives Mikey money for the bus later and makes sure they’re all okay a few dozen times, and catches the bus himself to Brooklyn, but not to the shelter, not to where he should be. 

Only Pops knows, in small detail, and remains in his place apart from it, giving Raph his space and he loves his dad because of that, grateful for that. He should be working, and moving on; he should and he’s sorry every time he’s doing  _ this  _ instead.

So after school, every Thursday, Raph catches the bus to Brooklyn, and sees his mom.

* * *

Six years ago Raph got curious. Curious about his memories and about his past. And god, he was so, so happy with his siblings and with his dad- with his new neighborhood and new friends and school and  _ life.  _ But he was eleven and wondered and worried a lot more than he’d ought to.

“What if,” he began to ask his Pops at the dinner table, after his brothers rushed away to get to the Wii first, “What if she comes back for me- and wants me back? Would they have to give me back?” 

And Pops- he would sigh, turning to the sink so that, maybe, Raph wouldn’t see sadness wash over his tired features, and then, rinsing the dishes, he’d chuckle low and quiet, “You must not worry about that. Your mother may come, or she may not. Does it make you not my son?” he shrugs, “Not to me.”

_ You will always be my son.  _

Hefting his book-bag a bit higher on his back, Raph gives a nervous smile to the UPS man leaving the apartment building in Bed Stuy. He looks around the street for a moment, small and reminiscent. Sometimes he misses Bed Stuy, and most other times he doesn’t- it’s weird that way with people and places you’re better off without. 

The people know him here, known him since he was three and the older kids that used to beat him up for a few bucks and a pack of his mom’s cigarettes- they’re still around too, most of them. Seventeen, and just over six feet, they don’t bother him much, ‘sides a few playful punches to the arm, asking how his family’s doing.

“Your pops still kickin’ ass?” 

“Hell yeah, absolutely.”

Pops only came to Bed Stuy twice, and the one time, the last time, made an example out of a couple of guys, despite being a few heads shorter and a few decades older. 

Raph doesn’t realize he’s been pressing the buzzer so hard till his thumb starts throbbing and his mother, from inside her apartment, starts yelling.

“Dammit, boy!” she yells, and the doorknob twists a couple of times before she yanks the door open, huffing away a few curls, “Shit, you’re gettin’ bigger every time I see you.”

And she- his mother. She cracks a smile, and Raph swears this time it reaches her eyes a little bit, as she leans against the doorframe, eyeing him. 

“Hey ma.”

* * *

“I’m gonna be Killmonger. April’s Shuri so it’s the same theme ya know. ‘S pretty cool ‘cause this’s our like uh...first  _ party-  _ and Pops is lettin’ us all go, ‘cluding Mikey if we watch ‘em.”

His mom nods, saying nothing as she stands by the microwave. 

“Leo- oh, he’s. Definitely goin’ unicorn this year. Mikes wanted somethin’ ghost-bustery so...him and Dee are doin’ that.” 

_ God, say something,  _ he wants to scream, fiddling with the string to his hoodie in the tiny kitchen. His mom could only afford this much, a studio that would’ve otherwise been comfy if she’d put anything in it besides a dingy couch and a kitchen table, box television on a crate. 

And finally, after the microwave beeps and interrupts their silence and after they’re sitting across from one another at the table, she clears her throat. 

“How  _ is _ he doin’? Donnie- the one with the…” she trails off, blowing on her spaghetti. 

“Oh...yeah,” Raph nods to the side, wishing of all the things to ask about, his mother would’ve picked something lighter, “Yeah, we’re not even sure what it is, y’know? He was good in the summer- could still walk on his own, but  _ now-”  _ he hangs his head over a bowl of Spaghetti-O’s, stirring his spoon around in it, “They’re tryna figure it all out, put ‘em on a shitton of meds.”

His mom grunts, swallowing her own spoonful and leaning against her knuckles, “Poor baby. That’s how ya grandmother got- y’ dad’s mother. Christ she got it bad. ALS.”

“Nah...can’t be that.”

“I sure hope to hell not…wouldn’t even have three years-”

“Ma,” Raph says, dropping his spoon to the table, “Forreal? Don’t...say that kinda shit.”

“Sorry…” her shrug is unapologetic, “But if Lou won’t take ‘em soon for it-”

“We are, actually. Just gotta get more tests back s’all. Pops knows what he’s doin’, and Donnie’s strong, y’know? And smart. He’s okay.”

Raph isn’t sure if he’s trying to defend his family or settle his own anxiety. His mom’s apathetic to things- it’s a part of her baggage and she’s never had shit easy and Raph can sympathize with that. But sometimes he really, really hates talking to her. 

“Why’s it always gotta be worst case scenario with you?”

His mom snorts. 

“Well shit! Sorry if I  _ care-  _ okay? Sorry you get all…” she gestures something bubbling over, rolling her eyes, lighting a cigarette and shaking her head, “That anxiety you got? It’s unhealthy.”

She offers him a cigarette and Raph closes his eyes and shoves her hand away, picking up a spoonful of Spaghetti-O’s and can’t help but stare at the overdue rent letters stacked up on the counter.

* * *

“Just take it ma.”

“Dammit, Raphael, I don’t take money from my kid. I won't take this-”

_ “Ma-”  _ taking her hand in his, Raph slips the cash to her, “It’s extra from last month, promise. Slash paid me extra for stayin’ a few extra hours, just- just take it, aight?” 

His mom twists her lips, staring down at their hands for a little while before glancing up at Raph, their eyes locking. And there’s so much in hers; despite their glazed emptiness, there’s just so much hurt and fear and Raph- he wonders if his get to be like that sometimes, too. 

“Fine,” she chokes, scratching at her blue scarf over her twists and closes her fist around the money and pressing a smile, “You go on home now. Family's probably...worried sick.”

And for all Raph’s wants and wishes, he knows this isn’t it. He may come to Bed Stuy, and onto this street, and into this apartment every Thursday after school- he may know the neighborhood, and the barber shops and the kids, and the UPS man and the dealers that helped take his mother from him, but he doesn’t belong to any of it. 

He belongs to his father, to his siblings, in Jackson Heights Queens and to all the overabundance of love found in it. 

Raph gives his mother a soft half smile, and turns out the door. And when he looks back, it’s shut, and she’s already gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway did i say how much i love rottmnt raph? the perfect, beautiful boy?


	6. The Great Inspiring: Trick or Treat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trick or Treat night. Emotions will be felt and costumes will be...incredible. Somebody may or may not fall in love with a mutant/humam/gecko boy. Eh, it's Halloween after all; things are always bound to get a bit crazy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally reaching some pivotal points in this fic!! And a HUGE thank you to all the reviews- I know I sound super dorky because it's not a lot of comments and kudos, not as much as other fics, but it really means a lot to me that you guys are enjoying it, even it's just like...30 of you lol. You guys so make my day and give me the extra boost! 
> 
> Anyway...mushiness aside, this chapter may be my fave so far?? To have written?? So I hope y'all like it!

**October 28th: Trick or Treat**

The sky is thick with clouds, and the setting sun peeks through like fire, like the burning orange artificial candlelight that lines Oak Avenue, illuminating projected moving ghosts along the houses. 

A few leaves rustle down the street as the wind blows, and from the window Mikey, in full vintage ghostbusters suit, sips on hot chocolate. 

The entire atmosphere of Halloween night’s just cozy and comfortable and  _ lively  _ and the joy is delicate and languid. 

Leo’s painting Dee’s face on April’s bed. He agreed to be the ghost to Mikey’s busting and Mikey loves him for it forever- because Donnie could've been a lot cooler things and, on seeing Mikey gush over a costume online, was pretty much committed to being an 1800’s poltergeist.

And Leo committed to a unicorn.

“I’m not saying I feel like this is my spirit animal, but-" he pauses to fan Donnie’s paint dry with his used paper plate, “Unicorns are just...blessed.” 

They all nod contemplatively, in their perspective corners of April’s bedroom.

“I’ll drink to that bro,” Mikey says softly with a simper, and raises his steaming mug a bit. 

The drive to Casey’s house isn’t as quick as it was to April’s. He’s from Brooklyn, and it’s an area Mikey’s not as accustomed to as Raph is, who navigates around it with ease. He and Case met a few months back, something about a pair of Nike’s and a fight that ultimately led to them impressed by how hard the other could hit; Raph’s six feet and everybody knew he could pack a punch when he wanted to- which was rare as it was- and the notion of a lanky Jewish kid stepping to him over a half-assed comment on a local hockey team’s skill, and landing a few good hits at that? 

He brought Casey over for Yakitori and Soba two nights later. 

“Casey better be somethin’ good,” Raph huffs, turning onto his street, “We spent two hours comin’ up with stuff.” 

Donnie snorts from the passenger’s seat, “Casey’s a lazy asshole, fifty bucks he’ll be in ripped skinny jeans.”

“Extra thrity if they’re the black ones with a painted skull on the butt,” Leo adds dryly. 

“Ten on the hoodie,” says April, and Mikey adds it up in his head.

“You’re so gonna owe us ninety bucks, Raph.”

No slight on Jones, but he wore the same shit every day. Except to his Bartzmitzfa where he wore a loose tie and dress shirt instead of the hoodie, according to his dad anyway. 

“I don’t even have a twenty on me,” Raph laughs, pulling into the alleyway.

“What? Dude, Slash totally gave you like  _ forty extra  _ for painting the windows- and sharpening his shell.”

Slash looked intimidating as hell with his spikes, but he was probably the gentlest guy in Queens, and gave Raph extra cash a couple of times, slipping it in his book bag or something really awesomely sweet like that.

They're grateful to him, Mikey never forgets that.

Raph grimaces slightly, and hefts his shoulders, “I dunno, musta used it on the bus, plus Mona wanted to lift weights- had ta pay ta get in.” 

Mikey sags in his costume, giving a disbelieving frown. Raph was always so weird about stuff sometimes- with his money and where he goes with it. He would protest it, but Casey comes down the fire escape the minute Mikey could think to, yelling up something to his sister as he does.

“Oh, goody!” Donnie cheers humorlessly, and lacking any authentic cheer, “Ripped, black, fuckboy jeans.”

“And...a hoodie,” April snorts, fist bumping Leo and Mikey on either side of her, “Told ya.”

Raph doesn’t seem to be listening though, and if he is, he ignores them, beaming at Casey as he makes it down the last flight, kicking a can of Pepsi across the gravel and hitting it further with his hockey stick. 

“Well, he does have pretty wicked mask,” Mikey says, giving Case the benefit of the doubt. 

Leo shrugs, “Ten points for effort.”

“Minimum effort. Dial it to three.” 

And Casey hits Donnie’s window for that, yanking the car door open, “Fuck you, Dee.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.” Donnie’s retort doesn’t miss a beat and Leo starts cackling from inside the helmet of his unicorn costume. 

Grinning, and maybe red- if the car wasn’t so dark inside Mikey would be able tell- Casey chuckles, squeezing into the backseat with the three of them, “I hate you idiots. Why’re you a ghost, Donnie- that’s so fucking basic.”

Donnie sips his coffee, blinking slowly, raising his Starbucks, “I’m a basic bitch, what can I say?.” 

“Don’t hate, Casey,” Mikey says, hefting his proton pack, “Dee rigged this precious beauty up with real life slime-  _ and  _ the Ghostbusters theme song.”

“That, I did,” Donnie brags, fist bumping Mikey without having to look. 

“Oh shit!” Casey laughs, “That’s...that’s pretty metal, gotta admit it, but I didn't even  _ see you  _ there, Mikes, past this big ass unicorn.” 

“Woah, woah, woah, woah  _ woah  _ there, Jones- this is a  _ custom made  _ big ass unicorn and you will respect it.” 

Squished between the two, April groans and sinks into the pleather, grimacing at Casey Jones as he puts his arm around her to pluck Leo’s unicorn head, “Boy, you need to  _ shower.”  _

“I work with  _ your  _ trash and  _ your  _ shit every fucking day, thank you very much. An’ I totally showered.”

“Axe doesn't  _ count.” _

“And pretty sure, don't quote me on it, that you pick up shit from Brooklyn? Am I correct? And we live in…?”

“Donnie, I swear to  _ god-" _

“Don, just let ‘im have this-"

“I physically can _ not, thank you-" _

“I DON’T KNOW GEOGRAPHY, OKAY?!” 

Mikey leans his head against the car window, the chill and mist from it in his hair and on his skin as his family bickers back and forth over Casey's garbage route; he always found cool stuff in people's trash, or at his dad’s repo shop, to give to Dee so- Mikey really didn't care  _ who’s  _ shit he picked up. 

But Donnie's stubborn and Casey's stubborn and so’s Raph sometimes too, and April holds her nose, spraying some perfume till they're all choking on it and- well. It’s an effective way to get the car quiet again.

For a second.

“Holy  _ fuck, April!”  _ Casey chokes out, snatching her little bottle and, because it's Casey, chucks it out the window.

From what Mikey sees, there’s about a half second’s triumph in Casey before dread settles in when he looks over at April’s face. She unbuckles her seatbelt.

* * *

Sparing gorey details- two attempted chokeslams, an apology and group make up hug later- they make it into Upper Manhattan, in SoHo on Maiden Lane.

Renet’s apartment was sixteen stories up- fifteen and sixteen, actually. They were pretty inclusive about their bangers, wasn’t picky about who they’d invite as long as they weren't assholes, which begs the question why  _ Casey Jones  _ was invited. Maybe because he wasn't the totally racist, homophobic asshole and lived more recklessly in the territory of a loveable asshole. 

Mikey hasn't really figured him out yet and keeps his mind open on things like Casey- wild and random like his family is. Casey’s familiar and that’s good for them. 

The music booms out mellowed, like something under water, each beat slowed and heavy and the dimmed lights make the vapor strikingly transparent as it absorbs the orange and purple lights. 

Navigating through it slowly, Mikey knows brothers are somewhere in this too. They've never been to parties- work and home and life kept them busy, and they’re never not content with each other, on the couch with a movie and Chinese- and this is somewhat peculiar to them all except for April and Leo, who kinda finds their places. Leo’s dancing with someone he's probably just met, their mane blocking most of his brother.

It's not a costume, which is why Renet threw the best parties; most people this young didn't give a shit  _ who  _ you are- as long as you didn't fall into the intolerance a lot of like  _ super old  _ people had, and Renet definitely didn't care about having mutants and yokai party with ‘em either. 

No one really  _ did.  _

Mikey grins at them, and not far from them is Raph already comfortable on the couch playing Uno, and keeping a careful eye on him. 

Donnie's probably slipped off somewhere much quieter, Mikey figures, stepping through glittering gold curtains into another darkened room full of costumes and smoke. He thinks he should find somebody to talk to, to document and learn about and as his eyes scan the room, he barely has a moment to catch himself before he collides with someone in a gecko costume. 

“Oh gosh, sorry, dude.” he crouches, picking their plastic cup full of churros and accidentally hitting the button on his proton pack, “Ah shit. _Sorry-_ let me just-”

“Hey man don’t trip, you good.” comes the voice from somewhere above where Mikey tries to jam the slime back in, and it’s raspy and soothing and blasé in a way that makes Mikey’s eyes shoot up. 

Blue light shoots across their face, and he rises to his feet, slime still stuck to his hands and churros still abandoned on the floor. The lights linger, trailing a little on the scales embedded in their skin- and it looks so realistic Mikey almost  _ touches it.  _

“It’s nothin’ really, dude- buddy’a mine painted it,” the guy says, brushing slime from Mikey’s cheek without much prompting, like they’ve known each other longer than these seventy-two seconds, “Jason, by the way. Wanna see a trick?”

Mikey feels himself nod, and wishes to the God herself that he could be just a little less socially pathetic. He doesn’t even know this guy, and something in Mikey tells him he shouldn’t feel this comfortable. 

Jason flicks his tongue, otherworldly in how long it is- which isn’t a part of the costume (he’s yokai, gotta be yokai). And before Mikey can even think of how to respond, Jason laughs and it fills the entire space they’re in as he knocks Mikey’s shoulder lightly. 

“You got a reason for the camera? Wanna record that?” 

_ Slow down,  _ Mikey’s brain screams, and he laughs, pushing his goggles up on his forehead. 

“Um no, nah- ‘s just for a project. Art project. Contest, thing.”

“Ah, you’re the one,” Jason deduces, moving Mikey into the path of the swirling blue lights to get a better look at his face, “Eh-huh. Sal’ raved about some kid from Jim and Donna’s- described you pretty good ‘nough- who talked for hours with ‘er about being a lesbian. And then I saw  _ you-  _ and well.”

He looks at Mikey up and down. “Ghostbusters, huh?”

Mikey shrugs, “My bro rigged up the slime part.”

“Your bro is righteous for that one, gotta say.” Jason grins, and Mikey grins back still uncertain and short on words as he plays it cool and lean against the wall. 

Silence washes over them as _Cuco_ plays, trickling into the room as people drunkenly sway to the easy melody in the next. Mikey hopes Leo stayed away from it, else Pops would murder them all; he had a thing against drinking, not even casually like Sake or something. Raph says it has a lot to do with his wife, and Mikey doesn’t pry. Pops is open when he needs to be, and Mikey can't fathom that pain, or the strength it took to unveil it. 

He catches Jason staring again, vapor leaving his nostrils in plumes that swirled to the ceiling. 

“I hate that art has to be a contest,” he says pensively, randomly, looking to wear the plumes go, “Everything else is...everything. Shit, can’t people, doing what they love, right? Why can’t it be...it. Just art.”

Mikey’s never given it much thought, so he tilts his head at his words, “Usually it’s ‘posed ta like, motivate, I guess,” he answers slowly, before chuckling to himself, “Just gives my tum-tum serious stress, though.”

“Oh my god, that’s adorable.”

Blinking, Mikey kicks off from the wall, and turns to look in the main room of Renet’s apartment, and stares back at Jason, brows rutting, “What?”

And Jason simpers, eyelids heavy as he does; and maybe he’s gonna say something when Mikey’s phone goes off in his pockets, buzzing over and over and-

**Incoming 11:57pm**

**Neon Leon**

+917-450-3372

we gotta go

now 

april’s gonna get u 

He looks up at Jason, heart plummeted and pounding where it falls as he looks at him with sorry eyes, “I gotta go.” 

He nearly tears the streamers down as he bolts into the main room and finds April gathering her things. Their eyes lock and. Wordlessly, April pulls him with her into the elevator. 

Outside the lights are also blue, and the air hits Mikey with a chill that makes him breathless as he breaks away from April, rushing over to Raph. 

The lights aren’t just blue, they’re red and Leo’s face twists in a way it never really should as he turns to see Mikey, and intercepts him from their brother. Their brother. Raph’s here and Leo’s here and-

“Hey, hey-  _ Mikey,”  _ Leo’s voice, strained and  _ trying,  _ breaks through, and Mikey’s focus snaps into where he is now, though his gaze still hovers on the ambulance and Raph a few feet away. 

“The hell’s going on? Leo-”

His brother takes him back a few steps, back onto the sidewalk.

“No, no, no, Leo- Leo what’s goin’ on?” he bucks against Leo, and surprisingly, despite his brother only being a few inches taller, and just as lanky, he’s a lot more steadfast and doesn’t budge. 

“Mikey, you have to calm down- Dee, he fell, okay? Took a hard fall _ ,”  _ Leo says, lowering his voice and closing the little space between them, clutching Mikey’s head, thumbs pressing into his temples, “And he’s gonna be  _ fine.”  _

“How-” Mikey’s voice is hoarse, “How’s it fine? I don’t-” 

Leo sticks something in his hand, and says something Mikey can’t hear before turning him to April. He gets away from her, just wanting to  _ see Donnie;  _ somewhere, he believes Leo, that everything's fine- and somewhere else he really, really doesn't. 

The EMT’s are talking to Raph when Mikey slips through, looking inside the ambulance. Dee’s got his eyes screwed shut, laying on the gurney and gripping one of the paramedics’ hand. He’s cursing, loud, and Mikey makes a move to climb in when he’s tugged back, the tips of his sneakers scraping the concrete for the half second he's off the ground. 

And now he's met with Raph’s face, and, fuck, it’s lacking nothing short of being petrified as he places heavy hands on Mike's shoulders and  _ stares  _ into him with all the solidity he’s got.

“I need you,” he says, squeezing Mikey's shoulders and shaking him slightly. “I need you ta stay here, aight? Just  _ stay.  _ Casey’ll drive- just be good, an’ if Leo didn't, call Pops.” 

Wide-eyed, Mikey swallows and nods. Raph never asks much, and maybe that wasn't great, but now he's more than asking and Mikey can give his brother, at least, his word. 

And Raph gives him a soft smile, and pats his shoulder, backing away and jumping into the back of the ambulance. 

It speeds off, and Mikey, watching the lights fade so that only the city, neon orange and blue lighten the streets and, simply, almost unaware of it, bites into a Snickers.

When Mikey was five he broke his arm, running away from his aunt’s funeral, cool bursts of air rushing against him as he broke away from a stranger’s grasp and  _ ran, _ tumbled down a hill. 

She was all he had then, and Mikey couldn't understand that she was gone. He hit his head, he thinks, and when he woke next none of his family’d been there; just his foster dad- face drained and eyes weary- and brothers, who in a few months would become the heart of him, and his entire world and his entire  _ joy  _ and being and warmth. 

Mikey slept better than he’d ever slept that night, surrounded by his family. 

But he always hated hospitals. 

His sneakers scuff against the tiles, squeaking when the soles of them brush against the floor as he kicks his legs. 

And since he was seven he's had that habit, and the trail of ticks to kick the anxiety accumulate as he gets older and, alternatively, as life gets shittier. Bouncing and kicking his legs were the least of them, and Mikey doesn't realize he's doing it till Leo rests his knee against his own. 

It’s small contact, but more than good enough, and Mikey also doesn't notice till then, that they're all still in costumes, in the quiet of an emergency room on Halloween. 

Leo’s without his unicorn head, staring at the same video on his phone. And for Mikey, the floor captures his attention like the ticking clock and the way Leo’s breathing beside him.

One and a half hours since Dee’s surgery, forty-five minutes since Pops and Raph disappeared with a doctor. Mikey counts the time and watches the soap opera on ABC. 

Casey mumbles to himself in the lapse of quiet. 

The world moves around them, seemingly in fast motion, as silence overtakes the air they sit in. Mikey keeps his knee against Leo’s and his eyes on his sneakers. The minutes drag on, and they share snacks and small smiles with small laughs at dumb pictures- Casey goes out for a smoke and April falls asleep on Leo and Mikey- he’s  _ scared,  _ quietly and kept underneath his hopeful bravado _.  _

Because he’s only ever really had them, it’s frightening thinking he’d ever not have them. And he’s sure Donnie’s fine, he’s alive, knocked out from surgery a few floors and rooms away, but-

It’s two a.m, a few trips to the vending machine later, when Raph comes into view, Pops not far behind. 

They wear themselves heavy and worn, but Raph tries a smile when Mikey perks up, nudging Leo awake. It’s a Raph thing to do; he’s like this humongous amalgamation of philanthropy and anxiety and it shows in the small things he does, like concealing whatever he’s got pent up, swallowing it maybe, to make this easier. 

His smile falters though, because as much as Mikey likes to believe against it- in his chest and with his gut and with all he’s got- Raph’s just as vulnerable to life. So Mikey shoulders some of it, sitting up a little straighter and gives some semblance of what Raph wears. 

“Boys, you must listen,” Pops starts too quiet and sobering, and Mikey’s eyes catch Leo’s in time to see his brother slip the paperwork from their father, reading over it tensely, his brows rutting.

“The bone...it should not have broken as it did. I cannot...explain it-” Lou looks to Raph who’s zoned out for a moment, blinking back into their small circle and clearing his throat.

He wrings his hand, playing with the ends of a woven bracelet four summers old, “I-it’s kinda like...uh. ALS, but not uh, not really ‘cause he’s not even eighteen,” the edge of his voice tremors a bit, “An’ it ain’t as quick neither so they call it PLS instead ‘guess. Primary Lateral Sclerosis.”

Leo shakes his head, his eyes still narrowed on the papers. 

And Mikey breathes. 

It’s all he remembers to do, even when seconds and minutes roll by and Leo pushes up from the seat. 

He breathes, vision blurring and making halos out of the lights above him. He knows he’s breathing, because he feels it in his chest- feels Raph’s hand steady against it, heavier than he means for it to be. He tells Mikey to breathe and Mikey wants to push his brother away, thinks he does weakly, fumbling at Raphael’s wrists.

It doesn’t work. 

Nothing  _ ever fucking works.  _

* * *

Eventually he stops fighting his brother, and the world rights itself a little, like a half skip back into place, and they find Leo sans his unicorn getup outside, in his white tee and leggings. 

“It was too hot,” he mumbled, hearing their footsteps, and rubbed at his face, “Didn’t really feel like being with you assholes anyway.” 

Raph just nudged his face gently. 

“Shut up,” and he said it with affection, a sad kind of thing. And Mikey didn’t waver when he threw his arms around his two brothers, hanging onto them like a life-line.

Because they were. 

And now they’re curled up several stories up from that, in room 709B with Sabrina the Teenage Witch playing on a tiny television, trying and failing to ignore life. That’s all this is, Mikey thinks, head against the mattress, studying his cards. He totally peeped Leo’s. 

Which is totally not cheating because his brother is shit at concealing his plays. And, Dee, polar opposite, has the poker face of a sociopath. It almost feels comfortingly normal, like maybe they’re not in a ward in some hospital in Manhattan, running on caffeine and pork rinds. 

“I think I should be a donor,” Donnie says at some point, still reading his cards.

_ Fuck. _

Leo drops his cards on the bed, “What the hell-?”

Donnie, dropping a wildcard, shrugs, “It’s actually a very crucial, time-appropriate topic- I’m calling yellow. Anyway, I should...consider that.”

And in that moment Mikey's heart kinda breaks for his brother- more than it has already- because he  _ knows  _ Dee, and this is Dee when he's afraid and trying very, very hard not to vocalize said fear, warping it into something he could make sense of. 

Mikey isn't good at that. Not too sure he wants to be; he's like Raph and it shows where he's been hit hard, and he's not like Leo, who goes cold and strange with the way his voice loses its humor and takes on something even and leveled and- wrong. 

“Dee, seriously, shut your fuck up,” Leon mumbles, regarding his twin with something serious in his eyes as he drops a two.

“We don’t gotta talk about that,” says Raph, quietly and contemplates his cards, stares through them entirely, actually. 

And Mikey- he says nothing at all, because definitely if he does it'll all stumble out wrong and shitty and he'd rather leave pep talks to Raph’s department right now.

Only Raph's silent, cards forgotten as he pensively watches the floor. So Mikey swallows and attempts at a crooked grin, wavering sorta but he's seen the potential in less than sturdy things. 

“Pops says they got some pretty sweet treatment for it- like new, experimental stuff they use.” 

And he's unsure of himself as he says it, but the small smile Dee gives him is like sparks or something inconceivably bright, as faint and uncertain as it is. It's enough though, and Raph seems to come back into himself. Tussles Donnie's hair as he connects their foreheads and supports the back of his neck with some tender hold. 

“Listen,” he says and Donnie does, “Who's talkin’ ta you right now?”

Donnie chuckles softly despite himself, “You, Raph.” 

“Does Raph bullshit?”

“Uh, define bullshit,” Leo drawls, leering. 

And, without breaking his hold on Dee, Raph flips him off and it makes Donnie crack a pained smile- like he's already missing this,ike he doesn't believe it, which hurts like all absolute hell. But Raph only holds tighter and Mikey's almost sure it grounds their brother. 

“Ya gonna finish that internship,” Raphael says with grit, like a promise, “An’ graduate- make a ton'a impossibly futuristic shit-”

“Get arrested ‘cause’a futuristic shit,” Mikey adds optimistically, to which his brothers all hum in agreement, Raph grinning with such girth and depth like suns. 

“ _ All  _ of it, Don.” 

He squeezes the back of his neck, swallowing hard, “An’ no one's gonna die. You're so not gonna die- or donate your freakin’ organs- anytime soon, ya hear me?” 

“No bullshit, huh?” Donnie sniffs a laugh, and Raph pushes him back with good nature.

“No bullshit.” 

Mikey's not sure Donnie believes, or even if that matters, because Raph's never bullshit, and his love for all of them’s as surefire and true as any imagined or tangible power in the entirety of the universe maybe. 

It's there and it exists and won't ever  _ not  _ exist.

And that's good enough. 

“I could rig a pretty kickass chair,” Donnie says, after they're settled and closer and still watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch, “Should add a flamethrower. Maybe rewire for thrusters.” 

“But definitely...go for flamethrower,” Leo yawns, “And cup holders. Oh, oh... _ disco lights.  _ Hell yeah. _ ” _

Raph mumbles something, half asleep himself. 

By commercials he's out and by credits so is Dee. But Leo fights it, watching Donnie carefully like maybe he'd go away if he didn't; maybe that's why Mikey's still awake- or his insane amount of sugar that he'll let himself crash from later, when Pops gets back and he's sure everything won't go to shit. 

But Leo’s not there yet, and he sits on the edge of the bed and stares at his hands, “…” he sighs, and catches Mikey's gaze, “Mayo Clinic- and don't...tell Dee I researched this on Mayo Clinic- but...Mikey, it takes both parents having bad genes to pass this on- onto their kids. Me an’ Dee are twins.”

_ Oh,  _ Mikey thinks, head feeling fuzzy as it rests on Donnie's good leg,  _ oh. _

Leo fiddles with the empty Uno box, “Whatever he's got, I have-  _ supposed  _ to have. That’s how it's supposed to work. Genetically or- or biologically?” he snorts frustratedly, “There shouldn't be a short straw in this one.” 

And he's right, it's fucked up. There shouldn't be a  _ this-  _ not for Don, or Leo. But Mikey's done a ton of purpose-searching in the past weeks he's spent finding his niche, and his art, and its meaning; he's no expert and, god, he knows next to nothing on Primary Lateral Sclerosis or the science of it or why Leo doesn't have it, or why Dee does, or how they're gonna get through it. But….

He rests his hand on top of Leo's because his brother's got more in him than he wants people to know and it's  _ scary  _ sometimes- to think about.

“I think it's like...color,” he says, doesn't really know where he's going with it, and tries to channel his best Raph or Karai.

“Like how sometimes two colors can be on the same...portrait, doin’ the same stuff, but one like...supports the other one. Reds are cool ‘cause they pop out an’ shit, but it needs some cool colors ta hold it up an’ make sure she pops.” 

Mikey sits up a little, de-pocketing a Snickers for his brother, “You're like that. Dee’s got this...disability, and you got  _ him. _ ” 

And Leo unwraps it, bites into it, chuckling as he does and shaking his head.

“Your analogies are….”

“Dazzling?”

“I was gonna say-”

“‘Thank you, Michael, you're a real one. The realest.’?”

It gets a half smile from Leo, and he pats Mikey's cheek affectionately, “Binch…” he sighs it, tired now and mentally drained, but not enough to not pull Mikey in, resting his chin in his curls, “You read my mind.”

* * *

Leo's asleep by three, when Pops gets back with blankets and pajamas to change into from the CVS, and he fell asleep five minutes after  _ that,  _ barely noticing Mikey was even awake still _ \-  _ not that Mikey could blame his dad at  _ all  _ for that; he’s beat too, ready to snag a blanket himself when his phone buzzes a few times in his pocket.

**Incoming 3:26 am**

**+917-502-4499**

heyy uh its jason.

jason from the party

from renets party

yeah u left ur camera 

took a look through my b

but ur good

arts even better

yea so i mean i could swing by ur place or u coul come to mines idc

hope ur not like dead i was hopin we could hang 

guess i got p lucky u left this thing huh

Blinking at his screen- in the middle of a hospital room with Uno cards and Halloween candy strewn all over the place, and four of the most incredible people in Mikey's life since forever- Mikey laughs in a breath, pursing his lips as he grips his phone.

_ Play it cool.  _

**+917-924-6873**

oh shit ahhh tysm for like not stealing my camera?? asgdhfjfkl my bad uh yeah yeah yeah sure i'll come to ur place we can totally hang no biggie

He hits send and, grinning confidently, Mikey tucks his phone away, curling up on the chair beside his brothers, “Nailed it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did he nail it? did he really? aaaand we're officially kicking off with this story's plot. there's a lot more to get out and i'm super excited to share with you guys! 
> 
> also finally we get a bit of a glimpse at what's been going on with donnie- which will be further explained through the next few chapters and interludes to come.


	7. And Onward: What Comes After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few weeks after Halloween, Mikey runs into some trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhh still have to reply to you guys' lovely comments!!! I struggled with adding some more interludes between the last chapter and this, but the fit a little later on so...don't fret! more answers about donnie, raph and leo will come in the next few days!! anyway, enjoy this chapter where things are bit calmer than the last :P

**November 16th**

Sixteen rounds of Uno, a season’s worth of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, an ungodly amount of hospital pizzas and some well-deserved, probably overdo cuddles later and November comes like a quiet blessing, like relief- and its cool and breezy and the rain comes trickling easy. The days pass slower than October; the days get shorter, too. 

And Mikey hasn’t heard from Jason- the kid from the party in Soho- ever since. It was no big deal- just, of course, a missing camera with all of his work for an art-show due a month away, and all of Mikey’s adventures held carefully inside of it, captured pieces of lives he’s brushed across. It was nothing  _ really-  _ just that some perplexingly charming gecko kid had his Nixon 300. 

It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried, as the hours of radio-silence turned to days, which bled into weeks. He’s called a hundred times, keeping it on the DL for a bit from his brothers, who, if they  _ ever found out,  _ would promptly hunt Jason down and tear him to pieces; Mikey was pretty sure Donnie was cooking up a way to do that easily just for kicks. 

His mind wanders anxiously to it, sitting on the sidelines as Donnie goes through another round of physical therapy they really can’t afford (and for that, Mikey knows Dee's unimaginably guilty for), or facetiming Karai, hanging upside down on his bed one snowy Thursday night. 

“Okay, hear me out,” she says, Shini’s black cat crawling over the keyboard, “Be aggressive as fuck. And pull a white person move. You know...threaten to call the cops. Sue. The  _ works _ .”

He never actually gets around to that, though it sounded plausible (because everything Karai had to say was plausible, factual actually); between teaching Dee how to still dance with his chair and making sure Leo and Raph don’t work and worry themselves into exhaustion, Mikey kinda let it go for a few days, keeping whatever dread swam in his stomach at bay till he was alone. 

Still, some days, he remembers what Karai says.

“Be aggressive...as fuck,” later, to himself on the train, Mikey mumbles, a few laundry bags between him and Leo. 

**+917-924-6873**

Heyo uhhh hi yeah this is mikey from the party

Renets party

idk how ell u remember me bbut

u kinda,, have my camera

see u txted me u have it so

it would be so cool of you to pls return it pls and get back to me pls thanks lol srry if im being annoying!

_ Aggressive.  _ He winces.  _ Maybe too aggressive.  _

Leo's tense, sitting close enough that Mikey can  _ feel  _ it, and he moves as close as he can to his brother because of that. 

They've all been worried as hell about everything and...everything, but Leo tends to take his worry and turn it to guilt and kinda materialize it into something like a lockdown. And Mikey tries hard to make that  _ not  _ happen.

He’s stupid. So stupid sometimes and it really, really sucks sometimes because he’s fourteen and can swear he’s fallen in love with a least six different people since March and now he adds Thieving Mystery Gecko Boy to the list of it all, at the very top of embarrassing. 

And now his mind vollies between wanting to be some kind of anchor for his brothers, right now, or to just  _ die  _ from this mortification and self-loathing.

_ This must be what the art of art itself feels like, _ he figures, sinking a little in his sweater. 

And Leo’s switching screens every time Mikey glances over at him. Tries to make it look like he’s totally  _ not  _ doing extensive amounts of research on  _ Mayo Clinic  _ (Donnie, probably, sensing Leo’s increasing, unhealthy levels of anxiety, in the middle of set directing at their school’s musical from his personal backstage  _ couch _ , is cursing their brother’s name), and the cost of a ramp for their stoop. Because that’s such a Leo thing to do, and it’s such a Donnie thing to do to hate that.

Mikey doesn’t  _ know  _ what’s a  _ him  _ thing to right now. 

He just slouches. A camera-less, artless man. Boy. Person.  _ Whatever.  _

There’s no notifs on his phone, and Mikey moans with soft dejection, dropping his heavy-feeling weight onto their sack of dirty laundry.

He doesn't focus on the steps ahead of him, face in his tablet, on a 3D model of his artwork Dee helped him cook up, almost mournfully, and cranes his neck back, whining into the cold mid-morning, frozen breath bursting into the air.

“Why do we even  _ need a turkey?”  _ he mumbles, kicking a Cola can down the sidewalk. “We’re a ‘Odon ‘n Pizza’ kinda family.” 

Leo, a few languid steps behind, and lugging their clothes, scoffs, “Because  _ dad  _ wants to  _ spice it up-  _ in case we actually have to host this year.” 

“How is a  _ turkey _ spicing it up? That’s. Literally the opposite of spice.”

Pops sometimes watches too much HGTV and Hallmark and forgets they’re not exactly nuclear all things considered, and Mikey really, really hopes this has nothing to do with their dad’s ex-husband who was so into that kinda stuff and wore pretty rad holiday turtlenecks and called Mikey and his brothers ‘kiddos’ with a completely humorless smile- it was...strange. 

Nothing about Pops and Baron  _ wasn’t _ actually- strange, that is- besides the fact that they were two college students in love in the 80’s who met at a live audience of Let’s Make a Deal.

It’s, admittedly, Mikey’s favorite Dad Story- ever.

“I don’t wanna host...I hate hosting,” he grumbles, feeling very complain-y and simultaneously unable to _stop_ that, falling back into step with Leo, who shrugs and pushes the door to the laundromat open.

It’s empty. Just a couple of people, and Leo claims his usual corner of E-Z Clean Laundromat, shooting finger guns at the old woman folding her spanks.

Plopping in the rounded plastic seat, grinning at her with a wave, Mikey earns a toothless smile back (they’re so popular in E-Z Clean, it’s  _ unbelievable _ sometimes). 

“I love the elderly,” Leo sighs, emptying the clothes into the washing machine, still smiling cheekily at- “How ya doin’ Gretchen? Good?”

Gretchen, who probably can’t hear his brother, just nods.

“Oh-ho kay, that’s- superb, Gretch.” 

Leo, like Raph, was kin with old people. 

And Mikey watches him converse with every other person in E-Z Clean so naturally it kinda stung. Because Leo had some way of putting every shitty thing he was feeling and swallowing it whole and still presenting himself as  _ semi-functioning,  _ and sometimes Mikey wants that kind of stability; he’s ambitious, though, and he can’t conceal anything. 

It gets hard to focus, as the minutes tick by, gets harder to keep up conversation with his brother as the weight of his misfortunate settle in, hunching his shoulders and the few sleepless nights evident in the way he sags and stares forward out the window and across the street. There’s traffic, there’s always traffic; he watches the cars go back and forth and the people that pass by, having, probably, a much better three weeks than he’s been having, Mikey thinks a bit selfishly, his cheek squished against his fist, eyes drooping.

**added to 'jup moon buddies' group chat**

**Rogue**

**(+917-450-3372)**

psst guys mikes sad :(

Mikey’s eyes shoot from his phone to Leo, who’s standing by the vending machine, like  _ he’s not right across from him. _

**Dumbledon and Fighter are typing….**

**Dumbledon**

**(+917-505-8299)**

okay. noted. but did he eat??

he gets hangry 

leo u have to feed him1

!

**Fighter**

**(+917-430-6729)**

MIKEY ARE YOU OKAY

SPEAK MIKEY 

Rolling his eyes at Leo, not lacking a smile though, Mikey texts back.

**Bard**

**(+917-924-6873)**

im fine raph :0 leos right here

leo tell them im fine 

Im not hangry d 

love u guys

**Dumbledon**

**(+917-505-8299)**

sounds like somthing a hangry person would say

but im muting u all in five

four 

three

two

April says hi

one

**Fighter**

**(+917-430-6729)**

shit okay don thanks for giving us your time today?

**Rogue**

**(+917-450-3372)**

hes too busy theatring to love us anymore :( oh fuk mikeys lookin at me wit evil eyes aww 

**Dumbledone**

**(+917-505-8299)**

Sup its april donnie says stfu he has to go over lines with irma

leave mikey alone jfc

**Bard**

**(+917-924-6873)**

THANK!

He chucks a rolled up sock at Leo.

* * *

Mikey endures Leo because he loves him, and two loads later he's actually feeling more into himself than he's felt in...at least a few hours. 

He and Leo joke around about nothing for a long time and share headphones and videos that make them  _ cry  _ from laughter, making E-Z Clean seem overfull with their collective joy. It's cold and cloudy and the wind bites outside but, in here, with his brother, Mikey feels incredibly...all right. 

He's in between changing loads and trying not to laugh all over again- in between a bus passing outside the laundromat and the few stolen glances Mikey gives to the shelter across 7the street- when something jarringly familiar catches him, frozen and still.

In the gaps between moving cars he watches closely...because he  _ knows  _ that build- from nights and nights ago, even from the smoky haze and dark glow of Renet's party...Mikey  _ knows  _ him. Knows it's Jason, and knows that maybe it was the universe giving him something  _ good.  _

Or just...less bad than he's been used to. With Donnie kinda not wanting to  _ talk  _ about anything PLS related, and his entire artist brainchild missing, Mikey feels like he hasn't got a ton of things to feel  _ good about.  _

And he knows Leo's gotta be looking at him sideways right now, but Mikey can't really bring himself to put focus on it, setting the basket down and keeping his brother at bay with a soft wave that wants for him to just _stay-_ give him a minute- in the same way his brothers do to him, as he moves closer to the window.

And, holy shit it  _ was-  _ it's Jason from the party, outside with a skateboard and a cigarette.

Mikey’s good at weaving in and out of things. Out of trouble, out of tense, ugly situations; out and through traffic without looking because he's only really looking at Jason, like maybe if he takes his eyes  _ off of him,  _ he'll disappear. 

Jason does not disappear, and when his eyes meet Mikey's- he smiles.

Easy as before, hair sticking out his backwards cap as he kicks back against the wall.

Like the party. In a hazy room and hovering a bit too close even for Mikey, a bit too familiar in how he talked. Casual and  _ easy. _

_ Don't  _ think  _ about the party.  _ Something in Mikey's screams as he steps up onto the sidewalk,  _ He's- different from then. Be cool. _

Mikey's never been great at being something that wasn't unapologetically himself. And the platitudes of unfeeling and untouchability never quite came easy to him.

His mind races as the space between he and Jason die and he's left but a few feet away, eyeing him with what Mikey hopes is  _ assertive as fuck.  _ But the smirk Jason gives back disputes that entirely, and undermines whatever guard Mikey's put up in the few minutes he had.

“Sup Peter Venkman,” he says, and shows his teeth, and pockets his hands in a headache-inducing (iconic to say the least) lime green jacket. 

“Don't,” Mikey says with some grit, “Assholes don't get to give me nicknames.” 

“And I'm an asshole,  _ why?” _

Mikey wants to punch him, knows he seriously  _ can,  _ and doesn't, even as he feels his face grow hot, “You  _ left me with no freaking clue where my camera was-”  _

Jason's face goes from something irritatingly smug to  _ oh shit  _ in a second and Mikey feels  _ powerful  _ for that because  _ good-  _ he should feel like shit over it. 

“Fuck...Venkman-”

_ “Mikey-  _ actually, nah. You're demoted.  _ Michael.”  _

Mike's not one for confrontations, hates stepping to anyone save on the account of his family but- sometimes people really suck for no reason and it makes him feel….gross inside because of it. So in spite of what he feels and, in the preparation to get his ass fully handed to him, Mikey squares his jaw.

Jason scratches his neck. Gives Mikey just about every reason  _ not  _ to hate him in one, singularly potent  _ look _ \- 

_ No. Not that.  _

“Look, Michael,” he says, and with painful uncertainty, Jason’s eyes search Mikey’s in a familiar kinda way- something Mikey  _ gets.  _ He's looking for safety in them, and it's something Mikey's got in spades. 

“Okay,” Jason huffs, and moves Mikey to the side as an influx of people pass by, “I still got your camera.”

Mikey curses himself immensely for the twitch of his lips, and the softening of his face. 

_ “But-  _ it's not...like, on me, dude, okay? So...and about the...about disappearing. I'm sory, ran into a  _ shitton  _ of trouble, changed my number-  _ gah  _ this's a real shitty excuse ‘cause you're like a really good fucking guy and. I  _ swear  _ I was tryna find you, dude but-” 

Mikey punches him.

In the arm, softly.

“Just….erase the past three weeks,” Mikey says, pocketing his own hands into his coat and looks carefully at Jason, trying to pick him apart, “I really want my camera, but I also kinda really wanna make sure you're not...y'know. That you're okay. I-I can't really offer much but- if you...” 

His words don't come out right or...make much sense but the way Jason’s shoulders fall and lose tension he's been holding and hiding since he saw Mikey, a ghost of a smile, breathy sort of in the way his smoke drifts above their heads, parting his lips.

He looks like a mess, but a mess Mikey can get behind, a kind that's growing on him in a very odd way; people who ghost you for weeks tend to never be a Good anything. But Mikey is starting to think Jason might be one. 

And Jason. He places his hand atop Mikey's hat. 

“Okay.” He doesn't look at Mikey, just to his right, to a stairway to a storm door, “What I'm gonna show you is  _ so totally illegal.  _ So. I hope you're down.” 

Mikey snorts, “S'long as I get my camera, bruh. I'm down.” 

* * *

He was  _ so not down.  _

**Idiot Sammich**

**(+917-924-6873)**

heyyy leo 

**Neon Leon**

**(+917-450-3372)**

where the FUCK did u go??

**Idiot Sammich**

**(+917-924-6873)**

hh bumped into a fren. should be back in...fifteen??

**Neon Leon**

**(+917-450-3372)**

mmmkay whatev

Underground fight clubs were somewhat outlawed in New York since like forever and Mikey and his brothers had gotten used to sneaking around with Casey to watch them, placing candy bar bets amongst themselves. 

But that was when Mikey was  _ nine _ , and he thought these things died a long time ago, or that the mutants and yokai running them found better hiding places than just across the street from where he washed his clothes.

He follows Jason, figuring it was the latter, with simultaneous fear and stars in his eyes as he wades through red rooms thick smoke that burned his throat. 

“This is nostalgic,” he drawls, feeling suddenly  _ done,  _ “Just like when we met!” 

It gets Jason snickering, pushing past mutants and humans those who were either both or too indistinguishable to really tell, playing pool. 

“This’s the Underground City. There's a couple'a ‘em around Manhattan and Brooklyn too. Best place on the fuckin’  _ planet,  _ bruv.” 

“Omigosh…” Mikey murmurs, watching a mutant breathe fire onto his fillet- which Mikey  _ so wishes he could do _ (it would help get dinner done, and maybe Jim and Donna would actually let him be chef's assistant)- as they walk through curtains to a quiet back room, free of noise and smoke and  _ heat. _

Not too long ago mutants were rare, hanging out in their corners of civilization; they're not so rare now, and Mikey's pretty much grown up with them around. Can't really remember the world otherwise. 

Some people say they were The Firsts, but Mikey only knows they're as normal as anything in his world. 

He trails behind Jason and lets out a breath he didn't really know he was holding, blinking through the transition of lights, almost colliding into...a guy that looks like he's made of stone. 

The guy holds Mikey a few inches from him by the face, moving him back a few steps.

“Mondo why the hell's a kid down here?” 

“Hey- yeah, ‘m fourteen bro,” Mikey's voice is muffled by this guy's hand, which still doesn't really stop him from talking,“Show some  _ respect _ .” 

Wherever Jason-  _ Mondo?-  _ is, he ignores the big rock guy with fascinating grip, and Mikey tries to peek through the spaces between his fingers, really hoping for their sake this wasn't a hostage thing; his dad would kick their asses pretty good if he wound up dead over all of this.

“He's-  _ I  _ uh...met ‘em at a party, okay? Just gotta give’m his camera back, Seymour. No big.” 

“He shouldn't  _ be here,”  _ Seymour says lowly, dark and swimming with fear that has some affinity, letting go of Mikey's face and tossing him into Jason. 

“Who's  _ that?!”  _ another mutant pops from a bunch of bean bags, loose feathers puffing out and fluttering to the floor. 

Caught between wanting to  _ enjoy  _ this, and still, some bemusement because his camera's  _ still not with him,  _ Mikey just takes a seat, accepting yet another peculiarity to his life, watching Jason and his friends argue over whether or not they should listen to the pigeon guy and kill Mikey. 

“No one sees the Underground City and gets away free,” Seymour says solemnly, looking at Mikey, and it makes Mikey think maybe there's something more to this guy, something more vulnerable than he looks. “He's gotta go, Mondo,  _ now-  _ before Hob-”

“Hob's in Jersey, dude, he's not gonna find out so just...chill, an’ let me find this kid's shit  _ please.” _

Mikey pats his thighs, raising a brow, “Find?”

Mondo spins around to him with a dopey grin, the kind the mirrors Leo when he knows he's being a dick. 

“It's  _ here _ . Just. These assholes totally  _ messed with my stuff.” _

“We so didn’t touch your stuff.”

“Screw you, Pete- I  _ know  _ you took my boards, too,” Jason says, digging through a bunch of their junk that Mikey, admittedly, envied sorta.

Pops, for as much as a hoarder as he could be, would never let this much stuff sit around the apartment. 

“Hang on Mikes-”

The curtains open abruptly and the lights from the rooms down from them are blocked still, and when Mikey lifts his eyes, he's not exactly sure  _ why  _ he's surprised but-

“Holy shit, Slash?” He jumps up from the chair, only for Pete to hold him back down, watching Mikey through a glare, “This explains  _ everything-” _

Slash watches him, looking slight amused as he nudges Pete away from Mikey.

“-the huge...beautiful muscles- I mean  _ duh,  _ you're, like  _ born jacked,  _ but not  _ this jacked-  _ and the sharp spikes, gotta be useful. Omigosh!” he gasps, beaming up at Slash, “ _ Does Raph know?” _

And Slash. He just kinda smiles, affectionately, soft and almost sad as he places a hand on Mikey’s head. 

“I don’t fight,” he says simply, and moves his hand to Mikey's shoulder, “Though I don't think Raphael would want you here.” 

Mikey blanches at that, suddenly, and sharply, remembering himself in that second and, smile fading, he plops back into the seat- opens his mouth- and shuts it. He's got nothing for that, and he hopes Slash'll be kind enough to not mention this to his brothers, most of all Raph.

His brother knew what kinda shit went down here- they all did- but that's far-removed from Raph now, and he's been weird about fights for a long time Mikey thinks. 

But something intuitive and odd tells Mikey he needs this place, and that maybe fate had placed him in all the wrong places at all the right times. He's a horoscope junkie like that.

Jason pops out from behind their piles, jolting Mikey from his thoughts and with, thank god, his camera.

_ “Tadaa!!  _ Told ya I'm not a thief, Venkman!” he laughs, and lets it drop in Mikey's hands.

“I thought his name is  _ Mikey…” _ Pete whispers to Slash, only to get pushed back into the pile of cushions he popped out from.

And Mikey. He's so relieved, and he can only smile, but...still. He feels something unfinished here, something he still has to do, something  _ keeping him here;  _ maybe it was curiosity, or his thrill to be a part of something more and new but he just- 

“Hey...Slash?” 

He keeps his eyes on his camera, on his lap, for a few seconds longer, before staring up at the mutant, “You think-”

“Oh geez- kid,” Seymour steps in before Mikey could even  _ say,  _ his arms crossed over his chest, “Sal’ already told us ‘bout the project. ‘S off the table, kid.”

_ Damn.  _ They were good.

But, Mikey can do better.

“‘Aight look-” he steps to Slash, his eyes on Seymour in his peripheral, and he doesn’t back down even with his heart exploding under his sweater- with a smug cat on it, “-a few weeks ago my brother fell at a party. Not too high up, nothing crazy. He just fell from a step to the sidewalk tryna get air because he hates parties but went because- yeah he’s freaking amazing and does that kinda shit for me.” 

He takes a breath, knows they’re all looking at him like he’s  _ crazy.  _

“Anyone’a us would’a gotten up and been  _ fine-  _ but. He shattered a bone, had to get surgery , and got a diagnosis I can’t even pronounce but I deadass know it’s gonna make a shitton of things in his life hard as  _ hell.  _ And we can’t...afford that.”

The admission, out loud it sounds and feels as  _ is  _ so much  _ heavier  _ than Mikey’s imagined it, before. Laid out like this, it really, really  _ sucks.  _ More than he’s wanted to admit since that night. 

Still he squares his shoulders.

“So I need a win- he needs a win, like...guys my whole  _ family  _ needs a win and this project is it, okay? So- kill me after or now or whatever but y’ can’t really blame me for just- and you guys are dope as hell- okay? This whole...concept is beautifully dope and it deserves a chance to be. Shown that way.” 

It’s a stretch. But it’s a stretch Mikey  _ means  _ and believes in, because that’s just him; he falls for and believes in things he just meets, finding and coveting within heartbeats. It’s him and it’s in his nature and Mikey can’t really help that. He won’t even try, actually. 

And Slash is looking down at him, Seymour’s got some smirk, but it lacks the resigned bitterness his eyes held before, and- Jason. He’s looking at Mikey with fucking  _ stars;  _ no one’s ever done that to him, and Mikey is almost caught again (he can’t help it, he really, really can’t) in something like slow-motion, suspended in thought and  _ feeling and- _

Slash clamps a hand down onto Mikey’s shoulder, claws almost sinking into his coat, and his face somewhere between stern and amusement and, maybe- Mikey allows himself to think it- even pride. 

“I haven’t got a story- I doubt Hob would-” just as he starts, Slash seems to fight whatever he’s gonna say back, switching gears. “You can talk to anyone here, but if Hob gets word, and decides to kill you, or throw you in a ring, I can’t promise my protection.”

Mikey doesn’t know who Hob is, and frankly, he’s swimming in what feels like a leeway to victory to really care what this guy’ll do. And picking up on Mikey’s blatant ignorance to the threat, Slash hangs his head.

“Mondo will keep eyes on you here.” and with a small smile, he takes a step back from Mikey, turning to walk through the curtains into the next room, “Good luck.”

* * *

Mikey gets back to Leo, emerging into harsh daylight- and harsher laundromat light- to find his brother, who’s looking just a lil pissed as he spots Mikey slipping back in, probably because he had to fold all the laundry himself, talking to the goat woman, Gretchen, about what the two boobs on his shirt mean.

“No no, my sister sent it to me. It’s  _ oppai. _ ”

Mikey holds back a laugh as Gretchen leans in, reading the shirt over and over and Leo looks  _ done,  _ but manages to light up when Mikey comes into full view, only half listening to the old mutant as he mouths what’s most likely a death threats. 

“...breasts are liberating non-sexual fleshy things, that’s the- oh!” Leo stands, inching away from Gretch, and slinging an arm around Mikey. “He's returned in one piece...and, smells like weed. That’s...You smell like- like weed,” he says, snorting. 

And groaning, Mikey pinches the sweater away from his skin, “I hate that…” he mumbles, letting Leo guide him to the baskets of folded clothes, “Take-ith it away.” 

It suits Leo better, a cat sweater that smells entirely like weed; he’s pretty sure Leo’s gonna be one of those pot advocates somewhere down the line, the kind that give you the rundown on why and how weed  _ helps _ and, at least how Mikey imagines it all, Donnie wil be there too, someplace, stating all the logistics and the science behind it not really because he enjoyed weed, more because he liked supporting Leo sometimes and being right.

Raph would find them anyway and try not to cry from shame on the car ride home, him and Mikey both in gas masks because their idiot brothers smell like freaking  _ drugs. _

Leo chuckles- in that terribly chaotic way he does- cutting into Mikey's vision, arm still comfortably slung around him, “Okay but  _ remind  _ me to get that from you forreal later though, because who the hell  _ doesn't _ love a cat sweater caked in 420, am I right?” 

They get their baskets together, and Leo doesn't really ask where Mikey’s been. And Mikey doesn't  _ tell.  _ He likes that about his brother, appreciates it wholeheartedly. And hauls the folded clothes outside where Raph is, sitting in the car, and Donnie’s in the back, and through the window Mikey can see he's having a very passionate ranting about something he'll probably not understand but listen to with genuine enthusiasm.

He's kinda in the middle of it when Mikey opens the door to the back seat, sliding in with fresh clothes and dryer sheets fluttering in the breeze. 

“-schools  _ are generally underfunded-  _ it's a fucking crime. These sons of bitches think we can survive on a shit budget? I can't make robots out of scraps- scratch that I  _ can-  _ but the others? This. This is why capitalism fucking  _ sucks,”  _ Donnie says, taking a swing of his coffee, and loses all gusto with the roll of his eyes, “I should sue.” 

“They're broke as is Dee,” Raph argues, taking the basket from Leo from the driver's seat, “Suin’ ‘em ontop’a that? That's just cruel.” 

Donnie laughs, laughs like he's going  _ crazy  _ at the idea and maybe he is and, alternatively, maybe that should scare them all. But Mikey knows his brother, and Donnie could probably take over a ton of civilizations with an iron fist if he wanted to. But he's got too good of a heart for that, Mikey knew, and a family to make sure it stayed that way.

He helps people- and Mikey’s got no doubt his brother'll find a way to intensify that endlessly. 

“No, no, no- oh Raph, not the  _ school,”  _ Donnie says like it's obvious, “The  _ system _ . See-”

Leo tosses a t-shirt at Raph, climbing in and glaring at him, “What the fuck did you start?”

But Mikey enjoys when Donnie rambles about the faults of government and about his pretty shitty science school **.**

Not that it was all that shitty, and Dee had a love for it anyway; soon as Pops realized he adopted a gifted maniac he took all the money he had to get Donnie into a better school before Don took liberties with his boredom and tried to set the apartment building on fire to see a chemical change in toothpaste.

And the school, just like Pops, had a hard time intellectually satisfying Donatello. Even his internship with Harold didn't seem as explosive and flamboyant as Don's ideas could be. 

There drive isn’t long, but they enjoy the silence these kind of drives give. Sometimes they can think, or just scroll through Twitter and breathe a weird laugh through their noses in solidarity. 

And when they pass 49th, they go over a pothole. It jostles the car and all their eyes shoot over to Donnie, who tries suppressing a grimace, but, god, it looks like he’s gonna throw up, with how pale he gets- either from the meds he’s been taking or the jolt, or just whatever nerve pain he's got going on, Mikey doesn’t know. Just turns to see if he’s okay, asks him if he is.

“‘M fine,” Donnie says, too quick and harsh, and he knows it- looking away just as it comes out.

But Mikey gets it, he does. This is really, really hard- and Donnie’s never ever  _ wanted  _ them to get in his head like that but- 

Mikey catches Raph's eyes searching Donnie's in the rearview. And Donnie nods, swallowing hard and forcing a smile, small and barely there, “Thanks…”

He doesn't question it, or why he and Leo get out first and Raph and Dee stay behind a while longer. He  _ gets it.  _ He just feels unfairly out of tune, angry about it and not at his brothers and not at  _ anyone-  _ just...how really, really shitty life could get sometimes, and his inability to control that. 

* * *

**Sunday November 18th**

“No you  _ didn’t.  _ You’re a little bitch oh my fucking  _ god,  _ Mikey I love you so much,” Karai’s laugh lags a bit, and Mikey can hear the heavy rain on her end, outside the apartment, “Only you man.” 

He stays up late to facetime his sister sometimes when sleep eludes him and his stomach starts turning and he can just feel...feel this heavy and deep pressure in his bones. Talking to Karai felt like everything  _ loose.  _ Like her chill was admirable and Mikey absorbs it gratefully right now.

“I just. I knew there was something there, you know? ‘S also kinda important t’ note that the place is dope as _ hell;  _ I would be, like, cray cray if I let that slip.” And on a softer note he adds, “An’ they totally deserve some recognition.” 

“Here, here,” Karai says through a sigh, knowing just as well, and maybe even more than Mikey does. “If you want, I can tell Shini to call- like if you need more...input.” 

Shini was yokai, and was singularly the most cunning woman Mikey’s ever known since he was eleven; she’d steal shit for kicks right in front of them and they just...wouldn’t see it. Her illusions were god tier on a  _ bad  _ day where she was barely feeling magic-y and on a the days where Shini felt like showing off-

It’s kinda why she’s still banned from their apartment and from April’s  _ and  _ from Mikey’s old elementary school. 

And those were better times, and Mikey  _ misses  _ his sister and her girlfriend. 

“Are you lagging or just zoned out?” Karai’s voice breaks through his laptop speakers, filling the little corner of his room Mikey sits in with it, soothing even in the way she laughs. Mikey wonders if her mom-  _ his  _ mom- if she sounded the same way. And a part of him sort of aches now for not being certain and not having a memory of her.

“Meh, zoned out I guess...just tired.”

“Hm.”

_ “Yeah…”  _

Mikey, for a few seconds, thinks Karai will believe that, and simply let  _ him  _ believe that. But he also knows his sister, knows  _ she  _ knows him impossibly well and that, in her knowing, Karai can see through his half-lies and well-meant bullshit.

“Okay.” 

_ Or not,  _ Mikey thinks wryly, giving probably the worst smile he's only ever reserved for times like this. When something he doesn't even know...how to  _ describe  _ is building up in him, and making his chest tight and achy.

“Well,” his sister says, stretching and repositioning her laptop. “Since you're all sleepy I’ll bid you-”

_ “Wait,  _ wait, wait,  _ wait!  _ Hol’ up-”

He takes a few breaths, and it hurts.

Sometimes that happens with big things that get pent up and buried. Hidden away for times like this where it's...vulnerable. And from the way Karai is watching him through the screen- like she just knows (maybe, he thinks, only partially panicking, because she really  _ does)-  _ Mikey feels so, so vulnerable.

“Growing up stuff, huh?” finally Karai says, her sighing in tune with Mikey's.

“Ding, ding, ding,” Mikey jokes halfheartedly.

His sister pouts, her pity for him as genuine as it always is; she's good like that, in understanding him. She's past the figuring out part of being fourteen, and Karai likes to share little pieces of acquired wisdom from that weird, awkward part of life she's overcome through tears and laughs and a lot of teenage angst. 

“I just...get. Scared, I guess,” Mikey admits quietly, trying not to fold in on himself, “Scared ‘cause I- ‘m like all  _ over  _ the place, ‘Rai. I keep...taking all these new directions- with...with my art, this project. With the people I meet.” 

Karai’s patient. Watches him softly.

“There's so much  _ more  _ that makes me  _ me _ an’ I didn't even freakin’ realize it till like 24  _ hours  _ ago-!” 

He deflates, “That's…shitty.”

And it  _ was.  _ Because he's nearly done with his Great Inspiration- he's found it and kept it and explored its meaning and now Mikey feels, in spite of an admittedly bomb ass self portrait, even more lost than he was months ago.

And it fucking sucks.

But he anticipates the way Karai purses her lips, in mid-thought, and already probably knowing what to say. 

“Mikey…” she says- starts to say- “Growth and change happen- like all the time. I swear to god my straight phase was...abysmal. It's a big part of being almost adult enough and it's gonna take time but. It's not  _ bad. Okay?”  _

Mikey nods, still processing her words. 

“As long as you...stay true to your core. You can go and do pretty much anything Mikey.”

She pulls out her phone, putting the back of her case to the screen; a picture of them from what feels simultaneously like  _ forever  _ ago and yesterday; Mikey's grinning, missing his front tooth on Raph's shoulders while Donnie glares at Leo who's kissing his cheek, Karai's arms draped around them both.

“Okay but.” Mikey lifts his eyes to his sister, and hates how small he sounds- “What if I can't  _ find  _ my core?” 

It's stupid- he  _ knows  _ it's so stupid. But he's still not grown yet, and maybe that doesn't make a difference, but he still needs affirmations.

Karai keeps the photo close to the screen, only taking it back enough for Mikey to see her face.

“This.” is all she says at first.

“When I'm feeling especially shitty on  _ especially  _ shitty days- this. You guys. Are my core and if I remember that I'm here to settle my father's business, and to honor my mother, and to make you guys  _ proud-  _ I am safe, and more sure. Make sense?” 

Mikey's eyes dazzle. And stay on his sister, absorbing her knowledge. Taking it in and letting it  _ sit  _ in him. In the uncertain places in his heart. 

_ “Bruh…”  _ he whimpers, scrubbing his eyes dry and flicking his screen, “You made me  _ feel tingly _ and  _ blegh-  _ and. Actually kinda better, shit.”

Karai smirks confident and accomplished.

“Thanks. I'm getting the hang of it. Raph's teaching me,” she says with a shrug, “How were my metaphors? Too much?”

Mikey laughs, and it feels  _ great,  _ actually, and free, “Nah fam your metaphors were well-seasoned. Like a good...pizza.” 

“Good shit. And tell Dee-dee to text me back and stop being a dick. And that I love him.” 

And he promises he will. Knows Donnie will roll his eyes and bite back a smile, dip into his little corner of their apartment and make sure he texts her back. It's a given- like the sunrise and snowfall and stars. 

Like it's a given that Karai’s talks are the  _ best  _ talks, and that Mikey will forever be thankful for her because of that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so mikeys got into new...situations. i was so excited to see the underground city in the rottmnt eps, and crafted it into this fic as well. in this universe, mutants and humans as well as yokai have co-existed for years, albeit a bit more separate in some places. so, mikey being mikey, he's gonna delve a little more into that world.
> 
> but will it bring more trouble than he's ready to take on?


	8. love (is a battlefield): an interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo discovers. Within and without.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun with this one, and while my insecurities regarding this fic still are lingering, and my next few chapters are still in beta, enjoy this brief interlude ft Leo battling his own insecurity, and finding something undeniably special.

It’s Eighties Hour on the radio in Taiyo’s, thank god, and Leo hums and sings along off-key to Total Eclipse of the Heart, restocking the shelves. 

No one ever really comes around this early, so his music and distracting thoughts keep him the best kind of Saturday mid-morning company. 

From six aisles over Doug shouts at him to shut up, and to redate the milk. Every time anyone ethnically challenged came into the store and saw Doug they called him Yamada-san or some shit and then Doug would roll his eyes because his name is fucking  _ Doug-  _ says so on the nametag- and this was his parent’s store. And Doug hates Leo sometimes, but Leo thinks he’s warming up to him every day the two of them are stuck in Taiyo’s together. They both like Naruto

That’s...always a start. 

“Can’t- can’t really hear you from the canned foods aisle, Doug,” Leo calls, marking the cans with his price gun,  _ “ _ _ Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time-”  _

“Oh for god’s sake, Leo-”

_ “All of the time,”  _ he sings into a Oishi Bichikushoku can of bread, and hums the rest, shoving the can back on the shelf with the rest just as the bell jingles at the front of the store. 

Moving easy and light on his feet, Leo dances to the beginning of the aisle, pre-rehearsed greeting at the ready as he evens out his apron, peeks from behind a rack of most likely bootleg DVD’s and-

- _ shit. Holy, everloving- _

It’s fair to note that in the summer of 2016 Leo had an abysmal time harboring a rather substantial, blossoming crush, had an existential crisis because of it and just wanted to absolutely  _ die _ before ultimately- as late summer turned to fall and he could, now fourteen, articulate his feelings with only minimal voice crackings- accepted that he had fallen in terrible, terrible love with the boy from Planet Fitness, that then became the boy who lived three floors below him.

That then became the boy who frequented Taiyo Japanese Food Market.

Usagi was everywhere Leo was, as if the universe had physically thrusted him at Leo and left him, abandoned him, to deal with the repercussions of youthfully loving someone. 

And now Usagi walks into Taiyo’s in grey sweatpants and his hair tousled up in a bun. 

Caught, Leo forgets he’s staring, and ducks out of view, gasping for breath beside an old woman, Mrs. Harada, who somehow slipped into the store quietly. She looks at him sideways and whacks him away, muttering like Pops does as she shuffles to the register. Doug nowhere to be found, Leo’s the only other idiot in Taiyo’s to ring her up, and he prays Usagi’s not there as he cautiously tiptoes behind Mrs. Harada. 

The universe says  _ no,  _ and spits Usagi out a few registers over- because it’s normal to just come in for  _ gum  _ when there’s about six bodegas from here to 49th- with Doug totally not keeping him conversed or anything, for fucks sake. 

Combing frustratedly through his dreads, Leo tries to breathe, glancing up from the conveyor belt of seafood and Mochi occasionally, watching Usagi make small talk with Dough, his back to Leo. 

He doesn’t quite realize he’s been scanning the canned sardines four times, or the knowing look Mrs. Harada gives him as she follows his eyes, humming deep in her chest. 

Usagi turns to leave, and when his eyes meet Leo’s it feels like time dies as Pat Benatar’s Love is a Battlefield blares in the tiny shop from above, the tempo of it rivaling Leo’s own heart.

* * *

Days and weeks of awkward waves and dodging, their meetings keep happening by accident, or maybe it’s not that at all.

Leo loses his keys and Usagi finds them three blocks away, only guessing that the  _ Sexy B*tch  _ keychain with a picture of Leo was, in fact, Leo’s.

“Shit,” Leo says dumbly, staring at his keys in Usagi’s hand, “Um. You’re a real one for this, by the way but uh…”

“It’s okay,” Usagi says, and looks like he really, really, really wants to either die or  _ burst  _ with how red his face gets, just before he says with a completely straight face, but dreadful regret already brewing in his eyes, “It’s just. Uh, it’s not wrong, that’s all.” 

Before Leo can recover, he’s gone.

* * *

Usagi is an actual dork, Leo figures out as September bleeds into October, and loves the carrot soup Mikey makes. Shy and quiet, the small smiles he flashes at him sometimes makes Leo want to melt, but he just shoots back one with gusto, from a few lines down. 

He texts Monica, Doug’s sister working register 6, and quickly stuffs his phone in his pocket.

She turns back to him, rolling her eyes before cocking her head at Usagi, jutting her thumb back to Leo as she reads through the message, “Cashier at register nine says he thinks you…so. Fucking. Precious. When you-  _ ugh, sorry,”  _ she flips Leo off, ignoring his shit-eating grin and, scanning the rest of Usagi’s groceries, says loud enough for Leo to hear, “He  _ should know  _ fraternizing with random customer is against store policy!”

Usagi sighs, looking over Monica’s shoulder at Leo, fighting a smile, “Should fire him…” he mumbles, handing her cash, his eyes still on him. 

“Call me,” Leo sings as Usagi leaves the store, face bright and, when he passes Leo through the window he smiles briefly, ducking his head and crossing the street. 

* * *

He does call. And Leo pretends he wasn't anticipating that. Like he pretends he doesn't notice Usagi watching him on the train ride home from the coffee house.

Neither of them drank coffee but the ambiance seemed cinematic to Leo and the pictures he took were god tier aesthetic so- the coffee house. And because Usagi is amazing, he goes along with Leo's shit, and Leo...doesn't really know why.

Because he talks endlessly about niche memes and can't function conversationally without them, masks a lot of his own depth and- still- Usagi calls him up on Tuesday nights and Wednesday nights and waits outside his apartment to just talk on Friday nights.

Goes to coffee houses with him on Saturdays.

Sticks around.

Leo wants to ask him, on quiet rides home like this,  _ why.  _ But that feels like too much. Feels conflicted on whether or not to lay his head on Usagi's shoulders (is that too much? too soon?). It's not like Usagi is easy to read either. He's just...placid, and keeps himself unbelievably composed a lot of the times.

It's weird. And Leo's so used to the loudness and chaotic loving of his family that having something  _ this fantastic  _ be so mellow- is foreign. 

From his side, on the train, Usagi seems to sense his dread, and still scrolling through his phone, he slips his hand into Leo's.

And Leo- he figures that, sometimes, emotions and...loving, that's foreign and new, can be the very best kinds of things. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so...im a big fan of leosagi. p much the only person i ship leo with tbh and yeahhh had to include that in this fic
> 
> i find rottmnt leo very compelling in that hes such a gen z kid, like myself, that often opts for memes than really getting to delve into the root of things (though hes more than capable)
> 
> and i think usagi, who is polar opposite, is p mellowed out. still very much a dork but those kind of people that're incredibly balanced. which is what leo needs so...hhh lemme shut up abt this!
> 
> thanks for reading you guys!


	9. And Onward: A ledge, a Shut Door and a Hard Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikey finds himself in a hard place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're back on folks! with the holiday season officially over and the business of it gone, I've gotten to work more on this fic. this chapter introduces jeremy, who i borrowed from the rottmnt 'the purple jacket' and who i decided i love very much asdfkj.

The camera focuses in and out. Adjusts to the lighting of Hob's club and Mikey let's Mondo do most of the recording. He lets himself focus, watching Pete kinda gather himself, looking almost anxiously between Mikey and Mondo and the camera in front of him.

“Do- do we have to record this?”

“Kinda the point, but if it makes you more comfy, we can...not do it.”

_ “Yeah _ , ‘s just that. The story’s pretty messy. Dicey, too.”

From beside Mikey, Mondo rolls his eyes, shutting off the camera.

“Dude, like, it's not that messy. Just skip the uber gorey parts,” he says to Pete, and leans over to Mikey, “It's totally not that messy.” 

And Pete takes a deep breath, still carrying some uncertainty in him as he looks at Mondo one more time. 

“Spare gorey, got it. Cool. So, anyone remember that gas explosion in Jersey?”

* * *

Mikey tries not to crack his gum so loud; he has a bad habit of doing that when he's really into something. In a really zoned out kinda way.

He hardly remembers initiating a conversation with these badgers, but they were loud and obnoxious and sweet in a way Mikey wanted to understand more.

“It wasn't always easy...I mean, I had a family. We took as much a we could but-”

* * *

“It was never enough.”

A huge fist comes down onto the bar table, making Mikey’s Shirley Temple drink nearly tip over.

“For them. My parents.  _ I  _ don't know, they just...exponentially suck! So...running away seemed good, I guess I just forgot how to-”

* * *

“Stay still.”

She swivels in her chair. His neighbor from a few doors down. And Mikey bites into cold pizza, nodding as her face loses tension and she sits back, combing through her hair. 

“That's what he told me. ‘And breathe’. I've never really sung before like that, and when I did...well I'm in a rock band for fuck's sake! And who the hell listens to punk rock- it's, like, not 2005!” 

* * *

“Wait the hell's this for again?” The old guy, sitting next to Mikey on the bench asks, looking over at his notebook and tablet.

“Ah forget it. So anyways, it was 1967 when I first met the man. Knew I was gonna be with ‘im foreva. He had such… His eyes were just  _ kind. _ An’ lookin’ at ‘im, I just think, ‘ah geez-”

* * *

“-esus Christ! Worst day'a my life. Deadass  _ never  _ go to work nursin’ a hangover.”

The woman pushes her cart up a little more at the Whole Foods line they've been stuck in, runs a hand down her face, and she's got a lot of ordinary beauty, the kind you can find in a lot of people, but she wears it well and tired.

“Just go find a building to sit on and...sit there, I don't know. Just...” 

* * *

Mikey takes the advice, sans the hangover.

Kicks his legs out from the building they’re on. Not much higher than the telephone poles and wires, the street not too far below them. He took it in strides: the interviews at the fight club, the experiences he was sure he could handle, but felt a bit overwhelmed by now.

Mondo's been watching him, following him every chance he got, and showing Mikey the ropes of the Underground City.

But for now there's no interviews, in smoked out rooms, or on buses going nowhere. Now they just sit and take in the one mild day in November, and Mikey sketches, listening to Buzzfeed Unsolved, one earbud in and the other Mondo has.

“Holy shit  _ bruh,  _ there's no way there's a legit  _ demons  _ in there- nah,” he says, clutching Mike's phone like a lifeline. 

Turns out he was cruelly unaware of the pleasantries of conspiracy theories and unfiltered chaotic evil. And, really, Mikey’s happy to help, laughing to himself at Jason's weird sound effects every few seconds. 

“Pops got us all into it,” Mikey says eventually, as the episode ends and Jason falls back on the roof and watches the hazy sky.

“Well not into Buzzfeed Unsolved, but he's a horror junkie and especially those, like, black and white films.” 

Mondo looks at him like he's reciting beat poetry, or telling some epic. It makes Mikey feel good,  _ heard,  _ and really stupid for even feeling that way to begin with. For romanticizing little, dumb things like the way Mondo stares and listens, or the way the soft, winter sunshine hits his face- which is dry from cold and pink in some places, like his nose and the ears behind his hair. 

_ It's stupid.  _

But Mondo doesn't actually  _ stop  _ looking at Mikey this way, and so Mikey doesn't actually stop talking. 

“I think he was into, like, the movie bizzz, y'know? Back when he lived in Kyoto. Anywho it just got passed down to me and my bros.” 

He smiles, with a soft laugh, and brushes cold from his nose, “It was pretty much  _ the first thing  _ we did after he took us in. Watch a bunch'a dubbed 80’s Japanese films and junk.” 

And when Mikey looks over, Jason's smiling too, just not in the same way, something regrettable in it.

“My parents are way too shitty for stuff like that.” 

Feeling guilty, a little, Mikey stays quiet, and then softly he adds: “Well, hey, ‘least you got Slash and Seymour and Ray an’ ‘em. It's a pretty solid family to have.” 

And Mondo lights a cigarette, which means it's already gotten too deep for comfort, and doesn't really look at Mikey either. “Tell me more about this list?” 

And Mikey, he tells him. Tells him how it started off as just people he  _ knew _ that he loved, then blossomed to people he wanted to know  _ more  _ about and then to just...strangers that captured something intriguing in him. 

“I dunno,” he says, and shrugs, and tries for the millionth time to  _ just be cool,  _ “Guess it fills something or...makes me feel...apart? of something? I don't know, like it's been me, my sibs and my dad all my life- our building, and our neighborhoods…”

Mikey stares at his hands, hoping this makes sense, hating the little pieces of vulnerability in him now.

“There's just gotta be more, and there is! I know...I just- need to…” he exhales, letting his arm extend out, like a jet taking off in the distance before falling back onto his lap, “Just gotta tap into it, I guess.” 

Mondo stares off into that distant plane, and nods, placidly.

The wind blows gently. 

* * *

“Woody. What's that about?”

“What's what about what?” Mikey mumbles, texting Raph back that he'll be home in thirty, and pretends he doesn't know what the hell Jason means. 

But Mondo's kinda smart, in the same sort of intuitive, introspective, empathic way Mikey is, and he teeters along the edge of the sidewalk, reading off the lists of names and interviews Mikey's done.

“He's topp'a the list, dude. Totally means he's, like, either your granddad, best friend or- and because I've only known you five weeks- please, dude, like take this with  _ all  _ the grains of salt but- you're crushing.” 

Mikey wrinkles his nose, like he does, and Jason gives him a stupid smile like he does- when he knows. And it's almost scary how Mikey just kinda knows that already. 

“Bro, when you say  _ crushing  _ it sounds deadass so wrong, and  _ grossly stupid-”  _

“Very passionate choice of words, Venkman,” Mondo says, almost missing a step.

He's got crooked teeth and flashes them confidently when he grins.

“I'm serious,” Mikey says, nose in the air as he walks past Jason, ready to make a statement by that before he grabs Mikey by the hood of his coat, dragging him back a few steps.

And when he does, and when Mikey's still and only half hearted in his annoyance and eyeroll and huff, Jason goes from holding his hood to his shoulders.

“Hey.” 

His eyes are still glassy from the high, but there's something serious in them that Mikey's not accustomed to just yet; it’s new and it makes the sounds of his heartbeat pound and rush through Mikey’s ears. 

Then Mondo cracks a smile.

“‘S no big deal. I'm so- I'm serious, too. It's really, like, not. So...my b for makin’ fun of you, I just-”

Mikey sees the way he's mentally berating himself and wishes he  _ wouldn't _ , breaking a smile to make it shut up  _ not be there. _

“Dude, Mondo- I was...you didn't do anything  _ wrong-  _ I just-” he huffs not really sure how to say it or if he wants to, even. “It's a dumb crush. Dumb because he's like a freaking  _ god-  _ okay?”

They both laugh, Mondo snorting and tossing Mikey away from him as he does and Mikey, somehow, feeling some incredible relief because of it, and so strangely comfortable with him. 

“That  _ is  _ pretty stupid Venkman,” Mondo says, after he’s caught his breath, throwing an arm around Mikey as they make it down the block to the bus stop.

But it ends with an endearing thing, as he coughs out another laugh and looks to the darkening sky, “But in a totally fuckin’ adorable way.”

* * *

They have breakfast for dinner and Donnie doesn't leave his room no matter how strong Raph raises his voice, or how many threats Pops makes or the fact that it's also Leo's room so he doesn't have full rights to lock them all out like this.

_ “Bruh _ c'mon. Just eat sum'n?” Mikey slides down the wall opposite to the shut door, which has a sign that reads:  _ fuck off _ , scribbled on in something a little sloppier than his brother's usual handwriting.

_ Oh Dee. _

There’s something unspoken in their household. It's the littlest things- the way Donnie has to pace the way he talks now and how asking to pass the milk doesn't always come right out, and when it does, suddenly the milk's a little too heavy to pour. Or sloppy handwritten cursive.

But they  _ know,  _ even when no one has a thing to say about it. 

Raph steps over Mikey’s legs, hefting a basket of laundry, and ruffles through Mike's hair as he passes, offering a small, sad kinda smile.

“Give ‘em space, Mikes.” 

It sounds easy, and Mikey really wishes he could just...leave well enough alone. But that's not  _ them _ . And he knows it's killing his brothers just as much right now to wait it out. He should listen to Raph; his brother's, like, mostly, almost all the time  _ right,  _ but.

Maybe, something irrational but heartfelt inside of Mikey thinks, just this once, Raph is wrong.

* * *

He plops on his bed after 7, and stares at the ceiling with his headphones on till 8, drowning out Leo's (kinda obnoxiously loud) facetime conversation with Usagi.

Mikey actually likes him- Usagi. He's like the opposite of Leo in all the best possible ways, creating a balance between them Mikey loves watching. Just not listening to when his brother thought he was really getting someplace with his one-liners.

The thing about one-liners was- you really only could use them  _ once.  _

Leo's on his fifteenth.

_ “Oh my god, you sure you're not in my house, it’s fucking hot in this bitch haaa-” _

Mikey turns the volume up a little, humming to  _ Drew Barrymore _ by Sza because it slaps in a really chill way and relaxes him enough till his mind can float and buzz in a static-y way.

He sinks into his mattress, hoodie and jeans and sneakers still on. He'll remember to take them off before he drifts to sleep, maybe. Or if he doesn't, when Raph gets back from April's, Mikey's sure his brother will take care of it.

And he'll wake up tucked in and shoe-less.

Before his mind can fully settle though- and free itself from the anxiety deadlines and ‘somewhat, sorta, maybe keeping stuff from Raph’ created- the doorbell buzzes, like a few times too many.

And Leo keeps talking from the kitchen and Donnie's  _ not  _ leaving his room.

_ “Leo…”  _ Mikey whines, sliding off his bed slowly, “Leo, get the  _ door...ugh.”  _

His body hits the floor and the buzzer jolts the apartment.

* * *

A few minutes after gathering himself up from the floor and dragging his body through the hall and past Leo's lazy ass in the kitchen, and hoping his annoyance isn't very obvious, Mikey yanks open the door.

It's Jeremy. Pretty much to no one's surprise, except that it's late- least it is for _him-_ and he's carrying a shitton of tech he probably smuggled from his and Donnie's robotics club, without permission. Because that's a Jeremy thing to do. 

He laughs, nervous, and wracks a hand over short green curls, offering a crooked smile.

“Hey is...uh, is Donnie here? I didn't wanna just pop in on you guys, but he kinda was ignoring my texts all  _ week  _ so…” 

“You decided to pop in…” Mikey finishes, not really annoyed with Jeremy at  _ all.  _

Just that, Leo was being Leo and didn't answer the door when Mikey was way into his zone and...Jeremy and Dee have literally all the makings of  _ a thing _ and are both irritatingly oblivious and obvious all at once- and it would be like Donnie to push away a good thing like the one kid that could listen to his hour-long rants about time travel theories. 

Jeremy sniffs, hefting Donnie's duffle bag, “Just figured I could bring ‘im his stuff...He up?” 

Mikey finds himself smiling, because Donnie's so freaking lucky to have Jeremy and  _ probably doesn't know that _ , taking some of Jeremy’s stuff from him.

“Is he ever not?”

“Nah, not really. Sometimes I'll get ‘em to at least, like, catnap. Kendra was gonna come too, but she's pretty much using Dee's down time as a way to get ahead’a him. She's so crazy, yo. Like,  _ it's not a big deal- _ ”

(Mikey stops listening, picking up pieces on how many times Jeremy says  _ and it wasn't a date! How is it possible for three people to go on a date?!)  _

Jeremy's known them and, more specifically Donnie, for a few  _ years  _ now, and can almost handle Dee as well as Mikey, his brothers and April can. 

He and Don pretty much founded their robotics club and Jeremy just had a really, really funny thing about him that made him hyper-attentive to things- to people like his brother, and a big enough heart, and enough patience to work with it. 

Because Donnie's got more to him that needs a lot of uncovering, and it- that's  _ fine.  _ Jeremy just tries really hard. Kendra too, even if she likes to pretend otherwise. They basically scooped Donnie up and claimed him as soon as he started at Gregorio; he’s loyal, hypes Dee up when they  _ can’t _ somehow, and deep, deep down, Mikey knows Donnie loves him for that. 

Passing by Leo in the kitchen, they wind up at the  _ fuck off  _ sign, and Mikey just now realizes Donnie's been blasting Awolnation, probably for the last hour. 

“Oh boy…” he mumbles, and turns apologetic eyes to Jeremy, “He's really in his bag.”

“Deadass, how long’s he been-” wincing a little, Jeremy points at the door, “-in there?”

Mikey shrugs, “Say ‘bout seven-ish hours. Like, two more an’ we’re gonna hafta pick the lock. Again.” 

_ Again, _ Mikey says, and shudders at the thought of last spring and the two day standoff where Donnie swore he would go ape-shit if anyone tried putting him to bed till he got through the beta phase of his self-cleaning toothbrush. It was...a hard time for everyone. And they never talk about it. 

Mostly because Donnie doesn’t even  _ remember it.  _

But this time’s a little different. He’s not in there because of a toothbrush or something else really, really awesome like that, it- it’s not like that at all right now, which sucks a lot and Mikey just wishes his brother would open up more and  _ talk about this _ . But he’s not.

Mikey nudges the door with his foot, feeling Jeremy hover over him anxiously, “I just really want my bro back, Jer’,” he whispers and reaches up as much as he can to pat his shoulder, “An’ if you can do that, I will  _ owe you my life.  _ Real shit.” 

And Jeremy, because he's precious, takes every word Mikey says and internalizes his mission, game face on and everything. 

Mike kicks the door again, and only a little harder. 

“Hey  _ Dee... _ you got a visitor bro. Cough if you’re still alive? Or, hey,  _ even better, open the door?”  _

Donnie doesn't respond, the music, actually, turns up a little louder and  _ Cancer,  _ by My Chemical Romance trickles out from the little gap under the door.

“C'mon bro, you don't- have  _ cancer _ , you have PLS- and isolation is so not the best medicine right now.  _ Hugs and talking are.  _ But- if you need alone-time just-”

The music stops, abruptly, and catches Mikey somewhat off guard, and Jeremy squares himself a little when the doorknob jiggles, the door swinging back just a bit.

And Mikey- he hates it. But Jeremy looks like he's got this, and partially blocks Donnie from Mikey as he steps to him as soon as there's enough space. 

But not enough that Mikey can't see his brother looks like shit, and not enough that their eyes don't lock, even for that small moment where Jeremy’s filling Dee in on the little things. And in his eyes, Mikey's not sure if there's anger, but it's empty and still so full of  _ something  _ he can't really place. 

And it's scary as hell.

Jeremy turns to Mikey, and it brings him back to himself just before he tells Mikey that he's got it covered, flashing a smile and a thumbs up, and closes the door behind him, leaving Mikey with something biting and heavy and jealous and shut out all over again. 

* * *

“You’re not...a jerk, dude. Okay? That's, like, physically impossible on all levels.”

Mikey groans, cheek squished against the cool tabletop of Lou Mike Tony’s pizza place. 

“If ‘m not a jerk, then why does my entire physical being  _ ache?”  _

“Maybe you ate too much pizza rolls?” April offers with a shrug, her foot nudging his in a kind of somehow tangible comfort. 

“Impossible.” Mikey sits up, taking a sip of his milkshake, “And screw you for insinuating there is  _ ever  _ a limit to pizza rolls.” 

And Casey takes his milkshake, sticking his straw back in and draining the little bit Mikey left over. 

“Just...he needs  _ time,  _ Mikey. My dad said. When my mom got sick like that it really fucked her up for a bit. Donnie's not...used to all'a this. And he's Donnie. He just. Doesn't want us to see him break.” 

And Mikey wants to say he  _ knows  _ all of this but-

“I dunno guys! It's like...how'm I supposed to ‘be there’ when every time I wanna be, there's a literal... _ door  _ in the way? You can't be where you're not wanted.” 

He takes the milkshake back, “It's like...at least he  _ lets  _ Raph in. And Leo's...Leo y’know so...he's easier to...I dunno. He opened up right when Jeremy came. But he hasn't  _ even looked  _ at me, and the one time he does- bam! it's like I'm the worst brother ever.” 

“Then. Then, I feel selfish and dumb for even  _ thinkin’  _ that! I mean he's  _ Donnie-  _ it's always complex with him, but he  _ knows  _ we care- that I care, right?” 

He looks to Casey and April, who both exchange readable looks- the kind that're super worried about him (should they be?)- and drops his forehead against the table.

“Let's...change the subject. Forget I said  _ anything. _ ”

_ “Mikey-”  _

_ “April?”  _

“Aight, how's the project thingy goin’? Your art thing- how's that?” Casey asks, and Mikey's somewhat grateful for that, even as April buries her face in her phone, rolling her eyes.

But even the whole ‘art thingy’ was...rough. 

“I found a lotta people to talk to, which’s cool. ‘S just...a whole lot more than I thought it'd be, y'know?” 

Casey nods, even if he doesn't understand.

“I just want a break, but I can't do that right now, not with...there's just  _ so much y'know?  _ That people’re goin’ through or...or  _ did.”  _

And it  _ was.  _ Nothing short of eye-opening really. He’s just a kid from Queens, and sometimes he feels impossibly big, and relevant, like it’s just him and all the people he loves in his orbit; but Mikey’s getting to learn how small that orbit really is. 

And it’s scary, and it makes Mikey never  _ want  _ to stop. Even if some part of him says he has to, at some point, there's just something like a quiet spark, and a rush that's gently ambitious; it’s dumb, and it's something Mikey can't shut up. 

April nods, drinking him in, in a way that makes Mikey feel like maybe she's got him sorta- just before her eyes narrow and she sits back against the torn pleather of the booth.

_ Oh god.  _

Casey catches it too, in between sticking fries into his shake, and shoots a pained  _ you're so fucked  _ kinda look. The ones Mikey dreads from his obligatory older sister.

“Does Raph know?” 

“C'mon April…”

“Mikey.  _ Does Raph know?”  _

He scoffs, in a totally unbelievable way.

“It's- virtually not a big deal. So un-big, that it doesn't matter  _ if  _ I happened to forget to mention it to Raph.” 

April, unfortunately, doesn't back down  _ ever.  _

“Mmm-hm. An’ if it's such an un-big thing then why does it matter  _ if  _ Raph knows?”

She's good. Years of her clever interrogations and slightly less than clever dodges on Mikey's part and he's familiar with April and her leverages. There's no disputing her loyalty or her love.

So Mikey just slips out the booth and finger guns his two friends as he backpedals to the door.

“What Raph doesn't know won't kill ‘em!” he calls from the exit, before dipping out quicker than Casey could bark a laugh at April's glower.

* * *

**Orange Crush**

**+918-774-6532**

ps pls dont tell raph

**April OJ**

**+918-129-7654**

-_- how dangerous is this?

**Orange Crush**

**+918-774-6532**

girl pls

hardly. barely

its not illegal yo

**April OJ**

**+918-129-7654**

im keepin my eye on u, if it gets bad i tell raph

and just talk to donnie. pls? for me?

_ “Just talk to him _ … _?” _ Mikey whispers to himself, brows rutting as he fumbles with his keys and unlocks the doors.

The television’s on, so Pops is probably up, and Raph's car was gone outside- so who knows where he is. Thank  _ god.  _ Mikey wears guilt almost as well as he wears big sweaters and fake, drawn on tattoos. And Raph was very perceptive.

As he hangs his coat above the line of boots and sneakers and Raph's gym bags, Mikey catches a glimpse of the T.V, which isn't playing Pops’ soaps, or any decade-old, timeless mysteries.

It's a documentary on freaking  _ corkscrews  _ and how they're made and-

Donnie's asleep on the couch, under blankets and next to Jeremy, laying on his lap. Jeremy snores loud, Netflix asks if they're still watching and Mikey smiles, soft and thoughtful, forgetting about that earlier sting entirely.

He lets his anxieties die away for the night, plopping in his dad's chair, works on his art until his mind buzzes tiredly, and joins them both in sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys think raph will find out? that donnie will open up to mikey? that jeremy and donnie are adorable? lmk! ugh but yeah i had a lot of fun writing this chapter, especially between mikey and mondo!!!


	10. The Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's cool and steely in here and so maybe he can just stay like this till he literally dies. He hopes he won't be missed, and that his family'd understand his mortification enough to excuse his premature shuffling off the mortal coil. 
> 
> Or he's just being dramatic. 
> 
> Mikey finds himself in another hard place, and, a door opens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaa it's really been since January that this fic has been updated and I'm so sorry about that! I just finished school so I've gotten a lot more time to write! This chapter is special to me not only because it's been forever since I've gotten to revisit this universe but also because I think I'm becoming a lot more comfortable with Mikey's character and this story's plot in general so!!! Enjoy!

“I think I should start a weed farm.”

“A weed f- no... _no,_ _end of discussion no.”_

Leo sags against the back of the stool, rolling his eyes that messy bed hair and matted curls sorta covered. 

Mostly because it’s a little more than obvious that Raph’s  _ end of discussion no’s _ were rarely the indication of an actual end to any discussion  _ ever; _ he kinda just always said it, and it became the benchmark of where exactly a conversation should end, and probably wouldn't. 

If  _ that  _ made sense. 

They were kinda like Pop's  _ no's _ but a lot more passive, and definitely... _ never _ came close to Karai's  _ no's. _

In the case of Leo’s endeavors to be a weed farmer, the very bringing of it up was probably already too far; Raph's a Hard No on drugs. Barely tolerates Leo vaping. 

And it’s literally not even seven in the  _ morning _ yet, and Raph’s patience usually hits its peak for their brother by ten. Anything before that’s fair game for an  _ early _ End of Discussion No _.  _

On bad mornings, Raph might choke him too.

And Mikey really hopes Leo  _ doesn’t _ manage to piss Raph off so much right now, since his eldest brother was the one currently putting his hair in two cornrows, and Raph’s a super express-with-the-hands kinda person. 

“I don't see why you would even  _ want  _ a weed farm, Leo- it’s unethical,” Raph mumbles, and sticks a comb between his lips, straightening out Mikey's head so he's look right across their little island at Donnie, who's looking unsurprisingly and characteristically dead-ish and...fuzzy.

Like taking a lens and smudging it a bit.

Leo elbows him and goes to pinch his cheeks, completely oblivious to the way Donnie’s eyes narrow even more when he does.

“Donnie tell this fool how  _ fucking  _ lucrative weed farming is-”

Dee opens his mouth (really he does look slightly enthused about getting to explain things; being out of school for a week was shit for him, plus horticulture was one of his many  _ things _ ), and he extends his finger like he does when he's really gonna make point-

“Alright, fuck it.” Leo says before Donnie can, shoving Cheerios into his mouth, “Raph I thought farming was, like, your super  _ secret dream.”  _

And Donnie puts his hand down entirely, not before flipping Leo off though, which Mikey almost thinks Leo misses. Of course though, because Dee and Leo have a really, really weird, sacred, shared bastard energy, Leo does  _ not-  _ and, without looking away from Raph or halting his argument at all, flips Donnie off right back without missing a beat.

Mikey thinks he's got a lot to learn from his brothers (he thinks this as he squints his eyes shut when Raph's knuckles knead in rough against his scalp)-

“Leo.  _ End  _ of the discussion. I dunno why ya keep talkin’. And I wanna farm  _ bees-”  _

-his aggression usually rested softly to people no matter which way he spun it and, probably, Raph always says, because he's really short.

But Karai's short. Scary as hell, too, according to people outside their circle. It's probably not because he's short. But Raph is hardly ever wrong either.

“Bees? Not bad…” Donnie says into his coffee. 

_ “Thank  _ you, Donnie.”

“You're gonna take his side? Why can't we farm both? Bees  _ and  _ weed."

“There's a  _ we?”  _ Mikey asks, perking up a bit because that sounds actually freaking  _ amazing.  _ Farming with his brothers and all.

Raph covers his mouth almost instinctively.

“Don't encourage him.”

Leo lights up, of course, anyway, placing his palms on the table, “Oh no please do, Michael!”

Raph moves to cover his ears.

“I mean just think," Leo goes on anyway, "Donnie, instead of like, zanaflex, or some shit, you could roll a joint- bam, you're  _ set.” _

“Oh my god, guys, Leo's lost all _three_ of his fucking brain cells-”

“No...no, I'm being deadass. Here lemme-  _ Pops! _ Pops c'mere a sec!" 

Mikey follows their conversation, up until Donnie chokes on Fruity Pebbles and Pops comes running in to save him. 

It happens more now; the whole PLS thing makes swallowing harder- it makes  _ everything _ harder. And Mikey’s not even sure if Donnie’s forgiven him just yet for noticing that, so he keeps his eyes averted a little, scrolling through his phone and pretending that this was just another part of the morning, like it’s normal or something even though it wasn’t. 

And in between deciding whether or not he should look up at his brother, Mikey’s phone buzzes in his hands, a small text box opening up. 

**+718-409-2257**

hey uh its woody

u know woody the pizza guy lmao

so yeah some guy came in, gave me ur number and said you needed me for a projecr

*project my b

i guess im inspiring or this is a joke but im down if your fr you seem dope asl

And it's like three things happen simultaneously: the universe itself implodes horrifically, Donnie coughs up Fruity Pebbles, and the entirety of Mikey’s will to live fucks itself right over and  _ dies. _

He stands up so abruptly he sees stars, says a rushed goodbye to his family and tries to hold in literally everything he's feeling on the train.

* * *

He spends three periods in agony and rage. Like really, really excruciating agony and really, really  _ burning  _ rage- that manifests itself in a weird way.

At least his friends say so.

“I don't think ‘pissed’ is a good look on you, Mikes,” Renet says, holding their books closer to their chest, “You just look constipated.” 

Which is unfortunate because Pops always said his mad face was really scary, even if Raph said it was adorable, and Mikey always believed him, because Dad knew pretty much everything actually, topping Raph. 

“Well maybe I am,” Mikey says, and mentally pats himself on the back, “Maybe all this….this  _ rage  _ is backing up my GI.” 

He wishes his brothers were here, or Dad. Or Karai. They got him so well it's like all it took was one glance and they just  _ knew  _ what to say. Or not say. Maybe he's overreacting, maybe this is no big deal, but something deep in Mikey- that's not constipation-  _ feels  _ like it is and he goes with his gut almost all the time.

It's just…safest that way. 

“I can't include Woody in my art,” he says resolutely, maybe more to himself than Renet, “‘Cause like...that's like mixing two  _ very passionate  _ things together which is dangerous as  _ hell  _ okay?” 

They look at Mikey like he's fucking insane and it makes him grip his hair, the coils wrapping around his fingers as he digs his head into his locker, groaning.

It's cool and steely in here and so maybe he can just stay like this till he literally  _ dies.  _ He hopes he won't be missed, and that his family'd understand his mortification enough to excuse his premature shuffling off the mortal coil. 

Or he's just being dramatic. 

* * *

Of course he's not  _ being dramatic,  _ Mikey thinks resolutely after fifth period, looking at what should've been notes, but looks more like whatever his imagination conjured up through the lecture on Persephone.

Which, hell, he  _ loved  _ Greek Mythology; only potential existential crises could make Mikey  _ not  _ pay attention to that shit. 

His stomach grumbles and he digs into his pocket for stray M&M's, face falling into a sorta frown. 

He's got at least three sucky problems right now: he's been practically outed to the one stoner-looking pizza delivery guy he's been idolizing since maybe last summer-ish by the one actual stoner yokai guy he's somehow put up with since last month-ish, he's  _ hungry  _ and his sugar's probably low, and Mikey's sure a third problem will manifest itself in a minute.

Donnie says only the best of shitty problems come in threes. 

Throwing his body against the door, Mikey tumbles into the outdoors, sneakers scraping against the sidewalk and gravel as he drags himself down the street to the bodega with the best gummy worm selection in this side of Queens.

Something rational (probably raph's voice) tells him he should get food, like real, protein-infused stuff with the seven bucks he's got. 

Mikey says fuck the rationality because he's pissed and hungry and lethargic and he  _ deserves  _ to take that out on his own health if he wants to. With gummy worms and maybe some good ass Arizona tea. 

Maybe.

The bell jingles when he pushes the door open, and it's a sound that barely registers anymore. He's been in and out of this place, and he's put himself on somewhat of an autopilot to get to the exact aisle of assorted gummy worm brands because it's second nature and, he's just good like that sometimes.

Mikey lets himself have a moment of triumph, licking his lips and plucking off a pack of Haribo gummies and the sour ones too for good measure, humming to himself.

And he's allowed a half quarter turn on the scuffed heels of his sneakers before he's practically smacked with the image of Jason fucking  _ whatever the hell  _ his last name is- like the physical manifestation of Jason is right here and Mikey hopes he looks as horrified as he feels, dropping his gummy worms, his gut reaction to slap him.

(its, admittedly, the weakest slap. like the, ‘donnie wake up’ slaps dad gives, that're more like pats)

Jason  _ smiles  _ though, the maniac, and bends down to get the worms, “That hurt," he says emotionlessly, "Ouch. Fuck-”

“Do  _ not  _ touch my gummy worms,” Mikey says through gritted teeth, knocking them back onto the floor-

_ Good move. Dominance asserted. _

-and he makes sure especially to glare.

Mondo looks a cross between confusion and amusement and  _ it doesn't help  _ that that particular look happens to be the look Mikey can't stand, absolutely.

_ Next step. Scowl. And tell him- _

“Fuck off, man. I mean it.”

It comes out...a lot more exhausted and a million times more mellow than Mikey means for it to be, but he figures he's said it and it's done and so he turns back to the wall of gummy worms and really, really hopes Mondo’ll just….get it.  _ Leave.  _

Mondo doesn't, because of course. He picks the gummy worms up again, and he's got that glassy-eyed seriousness to his face that, also, Mikey can't take.

_ Don't cave.  _

“I'm  _ sorry-  _ Mikes. For...whatever I did I…”

_ Shit. _

Mikey unclenches his fist. Barely realizes he's been digging his nails into his palms. And sighs, head dropping against plastic gummy worm bags and metal racks that hold them.

“‘M not gonna say ‘it's okay’, because tryna hook me up with Woody's a shitty thing to do, but….” he doesn't look over at Mondo, just lifts his arm stiffly and drops his hand on Jason's shoulder, “I totally kinda get why you did it so.”

He smiles, small and contagious in the way it catches Mondo (really. really nice. in the soft light coming into the store.), “I forgive you.”

Mondo relaxes under Mikey's soft grip on his shoulders, nose pink as always and around his eyes too. He smells like weed and it's obnoxious.

Mikey doesn't let go of his shoulder.

* * *

“Can't. Gotta go learn.”

“C'mon….Hob is actually  _ excited  _ to have you down there today. That's, like, a major first, bruh.” 

Mikey skates alongside him, in almost heaven with his sour gummy worms.

“Wow, that is a first,” he agrees, mostly under his breath, “But nah. Dude. My brother would  _ kill  _ me. Not Raph, Donnie. Raph would be  _ disappointed  _ which is so much worse.” 

It's not a lie; in fact it's pretty much a universal thing, unlike his  _ no's,  _ that Raph's disappointment was a very, very real, tangible thing. So tangible it gave actual heartburn to see and hear it. 

Mikey can survive Donnie. He'd be finished for good if he disappointed Raph.

Mondo snags a gummy worm, sharp teeth ripping it apart the second his tongue uncurls it.

“Kinda fucked up you didn't, like, tell him yet. Not that it's  _ bad.  _ But...y'know.”

Mikey laughs just to clear his own tension.

_ “Noooo _ I don't. I don't know  _ what  _ the big deal is, it's like everyone knows some'n I don't. It's an art thing! I do art things all the time! The only thing  _ some _ what dangerous is this art thing involves strangers.”

“And a fight club.” 

“That's not... _ dangerous.  _ It's inspiration.” 

And Mondo says nothing to that, not that Mikey really knew what he  _ could  _ say, he's just known Mondo enough that he's never really quiet unless he's gotta be, and Mikey hates being out the loop.

He's got enough of that at home.

“But forreal,” he adds, a little quieter, kicking up his board, “If it's a shitty idea then just  _ say  _ ‘cause. Y'know. I'll  _ stop. _ ”

Shrugging, Mikey tries read Jason. He thinks he's good at that stuff. Perception and everything.

But….Mondo's hard to read. Like Donnie would be if he wasn't Mikey’s brother. It's weird and Mikey can't place the uneasiness but it's  _ there.  _

(the bell rings. time betrays him. and if he's late and gets detention he’ll miss work and be short on money and….his family really doesn't need that right now)

Even with the way Mondo knocks shoulders with him, stealing his board back and  _ swears  _ everything’s fine and Mikey's got nothing to worry about- even with that goddamn crookedness to his smile- that feeling never really leaves Mikey that day.

* * *

**+917-774-6532**

woody hey...yeah. thats jason lmao hes dumb. but...i mean cool if u wanna help me out, i could come by??

not ur place ofc like just at Lou's or sum 

sorry u probably weren't even expecting this its dumb

but yeah if u actually want to just hmu it'll be cool :)

Mikey kicks a bottle ahead of him, shoving his phone into the depths of his jacket pocket, and wishing it'd sink deeper and  _ disappear.  _ God, he should've had Leo proof read that. 

“The  _ smiley face though?”  _ he groans, and shaking off his embarrassment he sinks into his music, pounding up the steps to the apartment, “That’s so stupid, oh my  _ god.” _

He passes his neighbors, the same couple that hang around the tight halls, and Miss Z’s kids playing with  _ someone’s _ cat by the stairs, mutters back a rushed  _ hello  _ in Spanish to Theresa and kinda feels shitty for it; part of him, though, feels mostly entitled to the sucky feeling he’s got going on. The whole situation is, admittedly, a gigantic, tangled, curious mess (he forgets all about his art project, thinks he’s a little beyond that now, distantly) and he’s...not really sure how to start balancing it.

Or how to even begin explaining it outside his headspace. 

Turning the key into the door, Mikey lets himself fall through, staggering into the familiar warmth of home, and taking in the smell of burnt box lasagna and bologna sandwiches.

Which meant Raph and Pops couldn’t find a middle ground for dinner. 

The two of them sit at the little island in the kitchen, and Raph’s got his old, old glasses on. The early 2000’s one he wears that probably don’t quite match his prescription but work fine enough to make him look uber professional when he and Pops did Important Paperwork stuff. 

Mikey walks into the kitchen, doesn’t try and stop their conversation, and completes his handshake with Raph as he shuffles past him to the fridge. He could...really, really go for bologna right now. That’s, in a very odd and unexplained kinda way, their shared comfort food. 

“Good day?” Raph asks, punching into the calculator- because the buttons always stick, but Dad hates getting rid of old things.

It’s  _ their calculator-  _ his and Raph’s. They’ve been using it together since Raph was, like,  _ ten.  _ English is Pop’s second language and Raph could pick out things their dad couldn’t get right away, which was pretty cool; it made them a good team. And, looking over his brother’s shoulder, Mikey gives a silent kudos to Raph. 

They were going over medical shit. Regimens for Dee and bills from said regimens because America super sucked that way. 

He drops his chin on Raph’s shoulder, watching their dad mumble under his breath, rereading out loud some insurance coverages, “It was ‘aight,” he says and not much else, because maybe his family’s already overfilled with problems and his is dumb and he really, really doesn’t wanna unpack that right now.

But Raph’s his  _ brother  _ and because of that fact, Mikey knows undoubtedly, he just...senses when there’s imbalance, and Mikey knows they don’t have to have that twin thing Leo and Donnie got to just  _ feel  _ that kinda stuff. 

And he prays to the universe and everything in it that Raph  _ won’t  _ ask, with the way his brother tenses a little, like he’s caught onto something. 

And if he does, Raph lets it settle, grip loosening on the overused calculator as he chuckles, hearty and deep in his chest, reaching up to nudge Mikey’s face.

“Later. Got it. ‘S cool, just…”

“Yeah,” Mikey says, yawning as he slips off Raph’s shoulder, snagging the bread and bologna and starting off down the hall to his room (but not before stealing a hug from pops), “Yeah, I know. I will.”

_ Later.  _

“Have fun paperworking yo!”

And Mikey’s just about to kick open his bedroom door- his next few hours of arting mapped out in the very, very slim chance procrastination and crippling, belayed embarrassment doesn’t captivate him first- when he catches a glimpse through the bathroom door. 

Dee’s chair keeps the door open and he finds himself stuck again, watching his brother lift and re-lift his arm, to get his toothbrush to his face. God, this fucking sucks. It sucks and it's not fair and Mikey feels like... _ burning  _ things and the anger swells, and just as quick as it does, it flutters back down into his stomach. Moves his feet before he can think, till he’s just a few feet from his brother.

He hesitates, sees that and his doubt in his own reflection behind Donnie’s in the mirror. 

Slowly, with a smile that doesn’t quite meet them, Dee’s eyes find Mikey’s and then, they roll. 

“I’m  _ flawless _ , I know- especially these new bags I’ve got under my eyes?”

He sounds so goddamn tired, but Mikey laughs anyway, getting a good look at Don. 

“Honestly Dee,” he says, poking at his own face, “I’m lowkey jealous of your bags.”

Donnie snorts, and reaches his hand to clasp onto Mikey’s wrist, guiding his left hand to grab the toothbrush from Don’s right. 

“I can’t do it,” he admits, too quiet to be Donnie, but his usual spark ignites mildly when his eyes meet Mikey’s again in the mirror, “I mean, I could. Hell yeah I could, but since you’re  _ here-” _

“Uh-huh, oh yeah, definitely.”

“Don’t….interrupt me, Michael. Brush  _ gently-” _

“Clockwise?”

“God,  _ yeah. _ Is there any other way?” 

Mikey doesn't answer that. Doesn't really know how to explain the completeness he feels right now, because it's such a small thing and it shouldn't matter that much that Donnie's asking for his help. 

It does anyway, though. It matters, like, exponentially and Mikey is both sure and uncertain as to why simultaneously.

He decides to figure that out later, some idea slipping into his mind as he tilts Dee's head back to get his gums. 

"I could go for a face mask…" he says but not too spirited, just out there enough to see if Dee's up for it.

Donnie spits into the sink, nodding, "I will only take coconut infused masks and Britney Spears." 

And when he grins up at him- always sorta devious with the way his brows rutt- well, Mikey's got one to match with intensity. 

* * *

Mikey stares up at the spinning ceiling fan, little dots of color spotting his vision from the light, but he doesn't look away, not to the side of him where Dee is, cucumbers on his eyes and probably in total bliss listening to Britney Spears.

Dee got the record player from Pops and it plays her  _ Oops!...I did it Again  _ album because, undoubtedly, it's her best work.

And it's kinda weird. Mikey could hang with any of his siblings and find  _ everything _ he wanted to say. With Donnie….he's not always so sure; their closeness is one built on unspoken transpirings of vibes, looks that speak volumes and quiet laughs at Vines they DM to each other from the same couch.

It's cool, actually. Mikey lets his mind just...rest, when he's with Dee, funnily enough. And Donnie's got no pressure to talk. It works.

Almost all the time, it  _ works. _

Mikey can't seem to make it this time though.

"'M sorry," he mumbles, the words working in his throat and making it feel sore somehow. 

If Donnie hears him, he doesn't show. Because that's Donnie. And Mikey  _ knows that-  _ knows his brother so, so well and sometimes more than he knows his own self. 

He's not surprised at the quiet noise Donnie makes, like he's a little bit curious but not sure if he should be. 

So Mikey sits up and takes the cucumber from his brother's eyes and his own sobriety reflects in Donnie's eyes, mouth set firm, that leaves no room for dismissal.

"I'm being forreal. I'm  _ sorry.  _ For not….givin' you your space. It was a shitty thing to do an' I know-"

Donnie covers his mouth; Mikey feels the small tremors in his hand against his face.

"Stop...doing that," says Donnie, in the few moments after, when he's sure Mikey isn't gonna protest, "What you did. What...you  _ do-  _ it doesn't warrant an apology, Mikey." 

Mikey blinks, moving his brother's fingers from his face slowly, not...really sure at all what to say.

Numbly, Donnie bites into his cucumber, staring up at the ceiling almost unblinking. He gets like this, on the few times he's ready to open up about  _ anything;  _ numb and distant from his own feelings. 

A coping thing, Mikey guesses. Just...one of those things. 

"You know…" Mikey says, a quiet start as he moves almost on instinct, closer to Donnie, "You know you can definitely talk. To us...about it." 

And Donnie doesn't say anything, not right away. But his face twists a little, like he's in pain right now, and thinking. 

He's processing, even now, starts talking fast and scattered about it, and Mikey lets him. God, what else could he do? He just, stays quiet, even if he hates this.

"There's things," Donnie says, but slower, like a gradual realization, "I will never….get to do. Things I already miss. Like. Um...d-dance. And...and theatre and holy cow  _ the stage-  _ working...with my hands, holy fuck I miss that and I haven't even.  _ Lost  _ that yet."

He takes a breath, and Mikey takes it with him.

"...and now, I'm on an oddly more comfortable than usual mattress, exfoliating my skin, bitching." 

"Dee, you're  _ allowed  _ to do that man-"

"Not...to you," Donnie says, "I'm not. It's not. Not fair to dump shit on you."

"It is, though," Mikey counters and means it wholeheartedly, with everything he's got, and shoves Dee just a little, "Your shit  _ is  _ our shit. We  _ barely _ leave you to do your work, 'cept if Casey or April's here. You really think we just gonna let you sit in this alone?" 

And he  _ means that,  _ and he wants Donnie to know he does. Because honestly they all got lucky as hell with the support system they've got, and Dee has a  _ team,  _ and  _ them  _ and…he shouldn't have  _ ever  _ been left to sit in this.

Donnie looks at him funny, and gives something with the semblance of a smile that seems perplexed a little, tapering off before it could become something whole; he covers his eyes back up with the cucumbers, one half eaten.

"I'm not gonna fuck up my mask with tears," he says matter-of-factly, and Mikey expects nothing less, "And you're going to shut up and  _ stop  _ knowing exactly what to say,  _ thank  _ you."

And cracking a grin, Mikey eases back down beside his brother, taking the earbud he offers gratefully. 

"Yeah…" he sighs, searching up Vine compilations, "Don't mention it." 

* * *

It feels like hours. Mikey isn't all that sure. But his stomach hurts from laughing which must mean it's late (things got ridiculously more comical at night, somehow) and from beside him Donnie's got that restless movement in his left hand that he only ever gets after 11.

Mikey's not surprised when he asks for help standing up.

"I just wanna see something. Mikey-"

"Oh _ hell  _ no. Mm-mm." 

_ "Mikey." _

"Noooo. Dude-" he pushes Donnie back down by his chest, surprised a little by how light he is, "Are you forgettin' this whole situation?" 

_ "’This whole situation’,"  _ Donnie grumbles back, rolling his eyes, "Mikey, I'm living this whole situation."

And then. He does the thing. That damned thing where his eyes get really, really  _ sad  _ and deep and only April was good at resisting it. 

He looks up at Mikey with 'em. Twisting his mouth into a frown, "I just. I just wanna see if I can do it.”

So fuck The Whole Situation, Mikey can’t tough out that look or the soft hopelessness Donnie’s got to his voice. 

“I’ll help you stand,” he says, deflating and catching Donnie as he sits up, and extending his finger, “Once.”

Donnie’s laugh is worth it as he shoves Mikey’s face, scooting to the edge of the bed, “Okay just. Three, two one and go, okay?”

“Okay, yeah. Yeah yeah, got it.”

They count together and it’s only on  _ one  _ that Mikey sorta regrets caving so easily. But there’s just about enough triumph that spreads across Donnie’s face to wash it away as he puts most of his weight on Mikey, laughing breathlessly, shaking his head down at his feet.

And when his legs give and Mikey isn’t really prepared for the fall, they wind up on the carpet just  _ laughing.  _

Donnie's arm is across his chest that rises and falls with each short burst of laughter. 

Staring dazedly above him, Mikey wipes his nose, eyes flicking over to Dee.

There's joy in them. The kind he gets when he's fixing things or taking them apart to see how they work. It's a look Mikey's missed. 

And he makes a silent promise- even after Raph comes in  _ panicking  _ ("your on the  _ floor-"  _ "not on purpose" "you two. are killing me. y'hear me, ya killing your brother") and scoops them both up over his shoulders- with everything he's  _ got, _ Mikey swears to everything that's ever existed and everything that'll come after, to make sure that it never goes away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...happy ending to this chapter! If you're catching on to where this is headed for Mikey that's super cool and I'm proud of you and I'm excited to let it unfold! Until then keep reviewing and letting me know what you think so far!!!

**Author's Note:**

> and we're started! hope y'all enjoy, feel free to review and leave a kudos


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